About me
How can anyone not enjoy the constant change and perpetual motion
that early adolescents, and their teachers, experience? I have
found that those who select middle school education have either
had a wonderful experience and want to give back to honor a special
teacher or have had a miserable experience and want to make sure
through their own teaching that no one else suffers the same fate.
My middle grades era, 1957-1959, was in Oslo, Norway. My teacher,
Mr. Lerner, was my teacher through sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
The students in my class, all Americans who were sons and daughters
of military personnel, remained the same for the three years.
The classroom, on the outskirts of Oslo, was in an old wooden
German World War 2 barracks complete with a wood-burning stove.
Mr. Lerner believed that a morning of hard work deserved an afternoon
of softball or skiing. These three years, were the best in my
entire schooling experience and helped me make the decision to
select a career in middle grades education.
I began teaching in 1968 at Neal Junior High School in Durham.
My first year was a first in many ways. It was the first year
the school opened and the first year of integration in the Durham
County Schools. Sadly, that year was also the year that Dr. Martin
Luther King was assassinated. There were challenges that year,
first among them living on $4,000 a year. Teaching challenges
included a 7th grade class of basic readers for whom none of the
books were appropriately leveled. No matter! We rewrote the books,
added historical drama to the curriculum and read many stories
about the colonial times of North Carolina. Students flourished
and so did I. I was hooked on middle school.
I moved to New York, Saratoga Springs, and taught in a wonderful
school system and then after two years moved back to North Carolina.
With three years of teaching completed, I realized that the one
thing all of my experiences had in common was that the students
who were low-level readers needed more than I was trained to offer.
Off to Duke University I went and earned a Masters in Reading
Education in 1974. From there I went back into the classroom to
save the world or at least my small part of the world.
Before my doctoral work at NC State in the 1990s, I taught 3-14
year olds, built and supervised a Title I program, reared 3 children,
was the Education Consultant for Raleigh’s Bicentennial
Celebration in 1992 and gave numerous workshops and presentations
on how to teach in middle school, especially how to incorporate
reading instruction throughout the curriculum. I finished my doctorate
in Curriculum and Instruction, Middle Grades Education in 1996
and began teaching at NC State that fall.
The love of my career life is teaching. My great hopes for education
are based on the outstanding students with whom I am privileged
to work. The focus of my teaching is on the foundations of middle
level education - development theory as it is applied to teaching
and learning (Why do middle school kids do what they do and how
can we use those wonderful qualities to reach and teach them?),
and curriculum development, especially curriculum integration.
(ECI 309, ECI 550, ECI 551) My research has also led me to investigate
how others around the world “do” middle school. Most
recently I have developed and conducted an education project that
looks at education in Russia. It actually was a project about
how American students learn best, but Russia was the year-long
project theme.
My classes involve a lot of cooperative learning, current readings
on middle grades education and early adolescence, work in the
field and a component of service learning - The Great Raleigh
Trolley Adventure.
I started in education in 1968 so you can do the math to determine
how long education has been my life. I have seen many teaching
and learning approaches come and go. As a very young student I,
myself, was the victim of being taught reading by an approach
that left many of us disabled readers for years. They even wrote
a book about it, Why Johnny Can’t Read. The title should
have added that Jill couldn’t read either. Because of this
experience I have been very sensitive to students with learning
challenges. My goal is to make the teaching and learning experience
as positive as possible. I always critique my own classes with
the question, “Would I want to be a student in this classroom?”
It helps me keep my primary focus on providing my students with
the best and most exciting teaching and learning I can offer.
After all, Mr. Lerner did that for me. Giving back to honor a
wonderful teacher IS all that it’s cracked up to be!
