Mr. Hoey is the director of the history and business departments in Hingham. He also teaches a B-Block Honors World History II class and has been selected to direct this year’s spring play, Love/Sick by John Cariani.
Mr. Hoey grew up in Marshfield and first discovered that he wanted to teach history in the eighth grade thanks to his US History teacher. Mr. Hoey describes, “He made the subject something to think about rather than just memorizing facts. All of my other history teachers at Marshfield High were kind of the same way. They were inspiring and engaging and funny and smart and just made it seem like something I wanted to do.”
Mr. Hoey has embraced all of these attributes in his B-Block history class. Pedro Muzel Damin, one of his students, commented, “He’s always bringing good energy to the class. He always has a smile on his face. He’s very funny.”
Mr. Hoey employs a type of show-don’t-tell learning in class. He’s always finding ways to get his students engaged in class. One example of this is his production line activity. On the first day of this activity, Mr. Hoey showed the students a smiley face he artfully crafted himself. He told the class he’d give a prize to the most creative smiley face and the smiley face that best resembled his own. The students worked and created a variety of visually appealing designs (pictured above). On the second day the students were assembled into five teams based on their rows. They had five minutes to make as many smiley faces as they could, which led to groups cutting corners and many of the smiley faces being deformed, unsmiling, and missing parts. This activity helped the students understand the effect that the switch from cottage industry had during the Industrial Revolution.
Mr. Hoey ended up joining Marshfield’s drama club in his senior year and double majored in history and drama in college. During his years in college he did lots of acting and even had an internship at the Jim Henson Company, doing several tasks around the office and even getting to take a day-long course in puppeteering, making Hingham High School likely the only place where one can learn history from a former Muppeteer.
This background in acting is why Mr. Hoey has been chosen to direct the drama club’s spring play. The play he chose is called Love/Sick, and is a series of vignettes showcasing the highs and lows (the latter more than the former) of love, each of the nine scenes involving two actors. Mr. Hoey decided on a vignette show because it allows many different people to play smaller roles, giving more people a chance to be in the spotlight than a typical show with a smaller cast.
Kimya Howell adds, “I am so excited to see what he does with the spring play and how his Sesame Street experience shines through!”
