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.

Educators caught by Lahaina wildfires have lost homes, classrooms

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Educators all over the country have undoubtedly heard of the calamitous wildfire that has befallen the community of Lahaina in Hawaii. The fast-moving fire has leveled nearly the entire town, killing more than 100 people and forcing thousands to flee without a possession to their name. When these survivors were finally able to return to their community, they found themselves homeless.

Preliminary counts indicate that more than 50 Maui educators have either lost their homes entirely, or their homes suffered so much damage that they are uninhabitable. And that’s not all. Since the fires destroyed King Kamehameha III Elementary School was also leveled, at least 15 of these teachers have lost their classrooms as well.

According to the Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA), some of these teachers and their families have been offered temporary shelter with family members, friends, or colleagues living in unaffected areas. Fortunately, a few of these educators have already set up GoFundMe, GiveSendGo, or Venmo accounts to help raise money to meet their most pressing immediate needs and get themselves and their households back on their feet. To see a partial list of these accounts compiled by HSTA, click on this link to their Maui Wildfires Donations webpage.

Remember that the counts of those educators that have been affected by the devastating wildfires do not include other school employees, such as education assistants, cafeteria workers, custodians, and administrators. And don’t forget the kids and their parents! They all need a great deal of assistance, too! This can be done through a donation to the Aloha United Way Maui Fire Relief Fund. Your tax-deductible donations will go directly to Maui United Way to support Maui victims.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the large numbers of people and the extent of the need. I’m sure every little bit of help you can offer will be very much appreciated.

 

Here’s to the teachers—they orchestrate childhood’s cherished mementos and memories

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While cleaning out a kitchen drawer this morning, I happened to come across a peculiar item—one I haven’t seen in many years. How old is this object, I ask myself? Oh, ancient, I decide. Almost 65 years old, in fact.

The object is a ceramic disk, a bit larger than a coaster, which had been painted in muted shades of yellow and gray, and topped with a glossy glaze. The image of a stick-figure girl, smiling as she leads a dog on a leash and surrounded by a balloon and a kite, is discernable in the colors. The image is surrounded by bubbles that were perforated into the disk with the eraser end of a #2 pencil. The reverse had not been glazed, and my name, “TERRY,” was crudely etched in capital letters.

Everything about this object is unpolished. This artistic endeavor will never win any accolades or awards. In fact, it’s a downright ugly little thing. But the masterpiece is mine.

I remember that long-ago day when I crafted this item as a kindergarten art project. The activity was designed by my teacher, Mrs. Somers. Not many artifacts  survived the turmoil and many relocations that gripped the household of my youngest years. This one only survived because it was gifted to my grandmother, who conserved it and returned it to me many years later.

In my mind, I gloss over the memories of the childhood chaos. It amazes me that, despite the turmoil I was experiencing at the time, I could still summon pleasant memories about puppies, balloons, kites, and bubbles. Ahhh, the innocence of youth. And in recalling the sanctuary of my kindergarten classroom, I feel an enveloping sense of serenity. Now, like the girl in the image, I am smiling.

Did Mrs. Somers know, when she designed this art activity, that she was providing a much-needed spot of brightness in my life? That her classroom was a place of safety for me? I doubt it. But I’m sure that, the day she removed our discs from the schoolhouse kiln, she knew that these were the mementos of happy times, and she hoped those artifacts would survive. This one did.

How wonderful and dear are the teachers, who thoughtfully orchestrate the creation of not only the cherished mementos, but also the treasured memories, of our childhood?

Beloved music teacher George Andrus inspires Hawaiian singing competition

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There are times when a particularly special educator inspires students long after he or she no longer walks this earth. One of was George Alanson Andrus, a beloved music teacher who taught in the Hawaiian islands during the early part of the 20th century. Even though he lived a century ago, George became the inspiration for a singing competition that still takes place annually at Hawaii’s Kamehameha School. The Kamehameha School is a privately-funded high school originally founded to provide quality education for Native Hawaiian students. Many consider the institution to be one of the most prestigious schools in the Hawaiian islands.

When George suddenly collapsed and died on May 26, 1921, the principal and faculty of the school wanted to honor the popular teacher. To do so, they hastily organized an impromptu choral competition between the classes that very same day. They held that first competition in the dark on the steps of the campus’s Bishop Museum, illuminated only by the headlights of automobiles aimed at the contestants. The following year, the Kamehameha School for Girls staged their first annual song contest.

In the early days of the contest, each class sang the school’s alma mater, “Sons of Hawaii,” followed by a Hawaiian composition, and culminating with an original song in Hawaiian composed by members of the class. In 1968, the competition was televised for the first time, live, with a simulcast on radio. Today, the event is still highly anticipated, and, like the very first competition, many of the song selections are still delivered a cappella.

To view a performance from this year’s song competition, watch the YouTube video below. To learn more about the Kamehameha Schools, visit their website at www.ksbe.edu.

Craig Rowe named a finalist for CA State 2023 Teacher of the Year

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High school English teacher Craig Rowe of Truckee, California, has been named one of his state’s finalists for 2023 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Truckee High School

Many exceptional educators have been recognized for their work in the classroom this year. One of these is Craig Rowe, a high school English teacher from Placer County, California. He has been named one of nine finalists for California’s 2023 Teacher of the Year.

Craig teaches at Truckee High School in the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District. He also serves as the Model United Nations Advisor for his school. The honored educator says he is passionate about diversity students having an equal chance to attend the college of their dreams. To facilitate this, he formed La Fuerza Latina, a small college prep admissions program for his Truckee High students. The goal of the program is to raise the collegiate bar for students from multi-ethnic backgrounds, and to provide the kind of high-caliber admissions preparation paid consultants provide. In this way, Craig says, diversity students have the opportunity to compete at the highest level nationally, to earn scholarships, and to reach their potential.

Craig has his own childhood experiences to thank for his passion to help disadvantaged students. As a young man, he says, he never saw himself becoming a teacher. The son of a Hispanic mother and a White father, neither of whom attended college, Craig remembers school as a place fraught with racial tension and frequent fights. As a young man, he recalls fellow students speaking negatively about his ethnic heritage, which caused him a great deal of shame and anger. “This was before multiculturalism was a thing,” Craig remembers. “School was definitely not a respite.”

Despite his inauspicious performance in high school academics, Craig went on to earn his Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Washington. He earned his Master’s degree in Dramatic Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. And he completed the requirements for his Ph.D. in Performance Studies from University of California, Berkeley. While there, he garnered a Regents Fellowship. In addition, Craig worked in a Chicana writing program at Stanford University.

“I want every student to know that regardless of their social or ethnic status, if they are hard-working and diligent, they can compete at the very highest level nationally,” asserts Craig. “My intent is simply to supplement our outstanding counseling support system, so our students have equal advantages for being placed in highly competitive colleges and universities as well as earn scholarships,” he concludes.

Sarah Morgan earns 2023 Golden Apple Teacher of Distinction Award

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Special Education teacher Sarah Morgan of Pulaski, Wisconsin, has earned a 2023 Golden Apple Teacher of Distinction Award. Photo credit: Pulasii Community Middle School

It takes a very special person to be a Special Education teacher. One of these is Sarah Morgan, who teaches at Pulaski Community Middle School in Pulaski, Wisconsin. She is so masterly at her work, she is a recipient of a 2023 Golden Apple Teacher of Distinction Award!

The Golden Apple program annually recognizes high-quality educators in Greater Green Bay. This year, eight recipients, including Sarah, were selected for their excellence in innovation, professionalism, and leadership.

Sarah certainly meets the criteria for her award. In her classroom, she utilizes functional life skills activities with sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students that have been diagnosed with intellectual disabilities and autism. To do this, she incorporates high expectations to ensure students are successful and behavior modification techniques to decrease less desirable behaviors.

One of Sarah’s classroom projects involves operating the Red Raider Restaurant one day each month at her school. Under her leadership, the students plan, cook, serve, and deliver lunch to students and staff. The objective of the program is to create pre-vocational skills that will ultimately lead to future employment opportunities. “Our overarching goal for students with disabilities is to become as independent as possible past their post-high school life,” Sarah explains, “so we want to start those experiences early and often so they can find success and find things that they enjoy and things that they’re good at,” she continues.

In addition to her work with students, Sarah serves as a Program Support Teacher for Cognitive/Intellectual Disabilities at the Wisconsin Department Instruction, where she represents the Pulaski Community School District. She is also a trainer of teachers for the Common Core Essential Elements.

Sarah’s Golden Apple Award, bestowed by the Greater Green Bay Chapter, is not the only recognition she has earned. She garnered the N2Y Kids at the Heart Award in 2014, and the Wisconsin Council for Exceptional Children Excellence named her their Beginning Teacher of the Year in September of 2000.

Sarah earned her Bachelor’s degree in Special Education from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire. She earned her Master’s degree in School Counseling from Lakeland College. Her career as an educator spans 24 years.