By Emma Bouthillette 

Staff Writer

Nearly an hour after school is over Monday the halls of Kennebunk High School are quiet, but history teacher Rebecca Moy is still in her classroom with two students making up a test. As the two boys finish their exam, they place their papers on top of Moy’s 20-ounce coffee cup.

“I tell my students if they need to leave me anything to put it on top of the coffee cup. That way when I go to take a sip I know I will find it,” Moy says. 

Moy, 53, of York, has been teaching at Kennebunk High School for 13 years, starting there after she completed her student teaching and received her teachers certificate from the University of New England. Prior to that, she received her bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Southern Maine. She currently teaches honors and advanced placement history courses to 11^th and 12^th grade Kennebunk students and has recently taken a trip back to the classroom herself. 

As a recipient of two grants from the universities hosting the seminars, Moy was able to attend two graduate level week-long seminars in her field of study this past summer. 

In July, Moy attended “The American Presidency II: Johnson to the Present,” at the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University in Ohio. Moy says the course examined actions of past presidents and theorized the motivation behind their actions.

“When you look at the constitutionality of the presidents’ actions and understand the constitution it places it in a different perspective and sometimes you can’t really fault them for what they did,” Moy says. 

In light of the current election, Moy says she takes what she learned from the seminar and applies it to her analysis of the current candidates for the next president. She says the best place to start analyzing how Barack Obama and John McCain will perform in office is how they run their campaigns. 

“If someone runs a well-organized campaign, they will most likely be well organized in office,” Moy says. 

During the second seminar,  “The American Judiciary Summer Seminar,” Moy spent a week in August at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. The seminar was a series of lectures presented by constitutional historians and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

“Sandra Day O’Connor presented about her experience as Supreme Court Justice,” Moy says. “It was like a dream come true to have met her.”

The two seminars completed more than 25 hours of graduate level classwork. Moy says ultimately she would like to obtain her masters degree in constitutional law, and the seminars were an opportunity to “get her feet wet.”

 “I’ve had the opportunity before, but couldn’t afford going to these seminars,” Moy says. “But I’ve been waiting to do this, and between the grants — and my 21-year-old son didn’t come home from college this summer — it was the perfect opportunity.”

While she does not anticipate using what she learned about the Supreme Court, Moy says she will use some of what she has learned about the presidency when teaching her students.

“My classes are never straightforward because I follow advanced placement guidelines,” Moy says. “I’ll use what I’ve learned this summer to explain president’s actions and the way they use the constitution. The emotional reaction my students tend to have to various historical events is reduced when they can see the process and understand it better.”

As an advanced placement course teacher, Moy says she teaches what the curriculum requires for the students to successfully complete the test at the end of the year and receive college level credits, but she strives to make her classes interesting.

“We discuss current events along with the historic periods we are covering. Right now we are covering the Great Depression, and it relates to the economy today,” Moy says. 

Another trend Moy says she notices is an increase in political dialogue with her students during the past two years. Moy says she is unsure whether this political discussion stemmed from the shift in 2006 when Democrats gained control of Congress or more discussion at home. Either way, she says she enjoys the active discussion.

“I like to take history and look at it in interesting ways,” Moy says. “I always hope I hook somebody with what I teach.”