Author Archives: Terry Lee Marzell

About Terry Lee Marzell

Terry Lee Marzell holds a bachelor's degree in English from Cal State Fullerton and a master's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Cal State San Bernardino. She also holds a certificate for Interior Design Level 1 from Mt. San Antonio College. She has been an educator in the Corona Norco Unified School District for more than 30 years.

Former Minnesota science teacher Jeff Isaacson is also an Olympic athlete

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Olympic athlete Jeff Isaacson taught junior high school science courses in Gilbert, Minnesota. Photo credit: Time Magazine

There are a few examples in our country’s history when an outstanding athlete is also an educator. One of these is Jeff Isaacson, a former science teacher from Minnesota who  competed in the Olympic Games—twice!

Jeff was born on July 14, 1983, in Virginia, Minnesota. Even as a boy, he expressed an interested in the sport of curling. As a young man, he attended Bemidi State University, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Science, and the University of Wisconsin, Superior, where he earned his Master’s degree in Teaching Administration.

In 2010, Jeff worked as a substitute teacher in Gilbert Junior High School in Gilbert, Minnesota. Eventually, he was offered a permanent position as a science teacher at Eveleth-Gilbert Junior High. He instructed courses in chemistry, Earth science, and life science to students in grades six through eight.

While earning his living as a teacher, Jeff formed a curling team and developed his talents as an athlete. In 2007, he captured a World University Gold Medal title in Italy. In 2009, the team captured the Moncton World Men’s Championship title. In both 2010 and 2014, Jeff and his team competed in the Winter Olympics. In the 2010 Games, which were held in Vancouver, Canada, the men finished in 10th place. In the 2014 Games, which were held in Sochi, Russia, the team finished in 9th place.

As a send-off to the Olympics, a special assembly was held at the school. His kids presented him a jumbo-sized gold medal and chanted encouraging slogans. “The students were so excited about it,” Jeff recalled. “They all had these signs with my picture on it. What a nice thing they did,” he continued.

Currently, Jeff works as the Curling Center Manager at the Chaska Curling Center in Chaska, Minnesota.

 

Elem teacher Melissa Kmetz named Ohio’s 2023 Teacher of the Year

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Elementary school teacher Melissa Kmetz has been named as her state’s 2023 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Ohio State Department of Education

I always enjoy sharing stories about exceptional teachers who have earned accolades for their work in the classroom. Today, I shine a spotlight on Melissa Kmetz, an elementary school teacher from Cortland, Ohio. She has been named her state’s 2023 Teacher of the Year.

Melissa was raised in Campbell, Ohio, where she graduated from Campbell Memorial High. At the time of her graduation, she earned a full academic scholarship to Youngstown State University, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education, summa cum laude, in 2003. She earned a Master’s degree as a Reading Specialist from Youngstown in 2007. That year, she earned the ETS Recognition of Excellence award. She has also completed courses at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Once she earned her degree, Melissa inaugurate her career as an educator in Salem, Ohio, where she taught first grade. While there, she garnered a Martha Holden Jennings Grant to Educators, which she used to fund a literacy lending library. Later she relocated to Lakeview Local Schools, where she has been teaching ever since. In all, her career as a professional educator spans 20 years.

Currently, Melissa teaches third grade at Lakeview Elementary School, where she has been since 2006. She has a reputation for being a strong advocate for culturally diverse curriculum, global education, and student activism. In fact, in 2010, the honored teacher developed a Change the World Project in her school district. Through this project, for the past 12 years, Melissa’s students have been activists, developing charitable projects to benefit those in need both in their community and abroad. Over the years, these projects have included support globally to help those experiencing hunger, offering assistance to individuals impacted by natural disasters, helping to grant the wishes of terminally ill children, creating comfort kits for children in foster care, and supporting local animal shelters.

Melissa can really see the value in these projects. “It’s just really getting them to see that their hard work can reach out into the community and also other countries, as well,” she asserts. “That there’s a reason they’re doing everything. Not just that ‘A’ on a paper, but that they can use what they know to make the world a better place,” she concludes.

Indeed, Melissa.

 

NM teacher and children’s book author Ann Nolan Clark

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New Mexico teacher Ann Nolan Clark earned acclaim as an author of children’s books for Native American students. Photo credit: Alchetron

Throughout our country’s history, there have been many examples of dedicated educators who have worked with underprivileged student populations. One such teacher was Ann Nolan Clark.

Ann Clark was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico, on December 5, 1896. When she was 21, she graduated from New Mexico Normal School, known today as New Mexico Highlands University, located in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

After her college graduation, Ann inaugurated her teaching career as a professor of English at Highlands University. But the young educator wanted to work with younger students. In 1923,  she accepted a position teaching reading to Native American children in a one-room schoolhouse at the Black Rock School in Zuni. Later she taught in a school at Tesuque. Little did she know that this position would last 25 years.

While teaching in the Indian schools, Ann observed that the Native American children learned more easily when their primers were geared towards their own life experiences, so she began writing primers with characters and situations that honored the the Pueblo way of life. Many of these primers were later published by mainstream publishing companies. Eventually, Ann broadened her scope and wrote children’s books with Navajo, Sioux, Finnish, and Hispanic characters. In addition to these stories, the prolific teacher also published a number of professional articles under the pseudonym Marie Dunne.

Between 1940 and 1951, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs published fifteen of Ann’s books. Her book In My Mother’s House, illustrated by Pueblo artist Velino Herrera, earned a Caldecott Honor Book Award in 1942. During the 1940s, Ann also wrote multi-cultural books for the Haskell Foundation and the Haskell Indian Nations University at Lawrence, Kansas. One of them was The Slim Butte Raccoon, illustrated by Andrew Standing Soldier.

In 1945, the Institute for Inter-American Affairs funded an educational trip for Ann to travel to Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. Her experiences on this trip led her to write such books as Magic Money, Looking-for-Something, and Secret of the Andes, which garnered her the 1953 Newberry Medal. Ann earned other awards as well. She was given the Distinguished Service Award by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1962, and the Regina Medial by the Catholic Library Association in 1963.

This remarkable educator passed away on December 13, 1995. During her lifetime, she published over forty books, 31 of them about Native American culture.

VA math educator Lou Kokonis, at age 91, still teaching after six decades in the classroom!

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Here’s a Chalkboard Champion who is truly unparalleled: Lou Kokonis, a mathematics teacher at Alexandria City High School in Virginia. Lou, is 91 years old, and his career as an educator, which began in 1959, spans a total of 65 years!

In 2019, as Kokonis celebrated six decades of teaching, he was honored in through House Joint Resolution No. 727 of the Virginia General Assembly, which stated, “Louis Kokonis has imparted his passion for lifelong learning to his students, many of whom went on to become physicists, engineers, doctors and professors.”

Here’s a four-minute You Tube video aired by CBS Mornings last month which celebrates the career of this remarkable educator:

Civil Rights activist Fannie Richards first Black teacher in Detroit

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Civil Rights activist Fannie Richards of Detroit, Michigan, is recognized as the first African American school teacher in her city. Photo credit: Black Then

Throughout our country, many excellent educators logged “firsts” in their community. One of these was Fannie Richards. She is recognized as the first African American school teacher in Detroit, Michigan.

Fannie was born on Oct. 1, 1840, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the child of free persons of color. When she was just a child, her family moved to Toronto, Canada. She enrolled in Canadian public schools, and once she graduated, she continued her studies at Toronto Normal School and then in Germany, where she worked with education expert Wilhelm Frobel as he developed the innovative new concept of kindergartens.

Once she returned to the United States, Fannie landed in Detroit. Because of her exceptional scholastic record, she was able to secure a position as a teacher in Detroit city schools. But in 1863 Fannie decided to strike out on her own. She opened a private school for African American children, which she operated for five years. In 1868, she returned to public schools when she was hired to teach in Colored School No. 2.

Under the leadership of John Bagley in 1870, Fannie and members of her family protested vehemently against Detroit’s segregated school system. The effort yielded the desired results when, in 1871, the Michigan State Supreme Court ordered the Detroit Board of Education to abolish separate schools for White and African American children. That same year, Fannie was transferred to the newly-integrated Everett Elementary School, where she established the first kindergarten in Detroit. In all, she taught at that school for 44 years.

Fannie’s activism went beyond the classroom, as she founded the Phyllis Wheatley Home for Aged Colored Ladies which was established to meet the needs of poor and elderly Black women in her community. In 1898, she became the home’s first president.

In 1915, after a career that spanned more than 50 years, Fannie retired. She passed away seven years later on Feb. 13, 1922, at the age of 81. For her work in Michigan’s schools, the Chalkboard Champion was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.