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.

Teacher Clara Comstock: She helped with Orphan Trains

Posted on by
Clara Comstock

Teacher Clara Comstock, second from right, with a colleague and a group of homeless children she escorted on an Orphan Train. Circa 1910. Photo credit: Children’s Aid Society

In American history there are many examples of dedicated educators going above and beyond in order to help young students, both inside the classroom and in their personal lives. One of these was Clara Comstock, a hardworking teacher from New York.

Clara was born on July 5, 1879, in Hartsville, New York, the daughter of hardy pioneer stock. Her father was a farmer and blacksmith. As a young girl, Clara was educated at the Canisteo Academy in the neighboring town of Canisteo, New York. She graduated in 1895 at the age of 16 and spent the next several years working on her teacher’s training courses.

Clara inaugurated her career as a teacher in 1903 at the Brace Memorial Farm School in Valhalla, New York. Her students were New York City “street Arabs,” homeless boys that were orphaned, abandoned, or removed from their homes because their parents were deemed unfit or unable to adequately care form them. At the Farm School, these kids were taught fundamental literacy skills such as reading, writing, and mathematics, some vocational training, including carpentry, shoe-making, and box-making.

After a few years, in order to be of greater service to homeless kids, Clara accepted a position with the Children’s Aid Society (CAS), an organization which still exists today to benefit needy children. The CAS organized the famous Orphan Trains, small groups of children that were transported west and placed in foster homes on farms and in rural communities. Clara escorted many of these groups, conducted background checks on prospective foster parents, and made periodic checks on the children she placed. She did this work until her retirement in 1928, then she spent another two decades working for the CAS in-state foster care program.

During her lifetime, Clara placed more than 12,000 homeless children in homes, painstakingly keeping track of each one of them until they reached adulthood. She kept a personal diary and filled several trunks with meticulous records of the children she worked with. Decades later, these records became invaluable resources for Orphan Train riders who were seeking information about their origins.

You can read more about this amazing and dedicated teacher and the orphan train system in my book Chalkboard Champions, available on amazon.

Texas Theater Arts teacher Brad DeBorde named a 2020 Top Teacher

Posted on by

Middle school and high school Theater Arts teacher Brad DeBorde of Texas has been named a 2020 Top Teacher by Fort Worth Magazine. Photo credit: Brad DeBorde

I enjoy sharing stories about exceptional educators who have earned awards for their work in the classroom. One of these is Brad DeBorde, a Theater Arts teacher from Grand Prairie, Texas. He has been named a 2020 Top Teacher by Fort Worth Magazine.

Brad comes from a family of teachers. His father taught physical education to special needs students, and his mother served as an Athletic Director of DeSoto Independent School District. The honored educator earned his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of North Texas in 2006. Currently, he teaches middle and high school Drama at the Oakridge School in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District. In his spare time, he has directed productions at Ellis County Children’s Theater in Waxahatchie, Texas.

Brad says he sees a lot of parallels between himself and his students. They’re all growing together. “Those first five years as a teacher, you’re a young punk and think you know everything,” Brad confessed. “And then you settle in and realize ‘Oh, teaching is also a lifelong learning position.’ So, like your students, you grow and you mature,” he continued.

In addition to theater, Brad is also a writer of five fantasy novels for young adults in a series he dubbed Paydunor. Check out his publications on amazon.com. He also teaches a seminar course on independent publishing. “My students spend half the semester writing a novel or novella, and I teach them how to self-publish or find literary agents,” he described. “We’ve actually had about 12 students published now. It’s kinda cool that a kid can enter a college interview and say, ‘Hey, here’s my novel,'” he concluded.

 

Nebraska teacher Joanne Moldenhauer garnered many awards

Posted on by

Math educator Joanne Moldenhauer, originally from Nebraska, garnered many accolades for her work in the classroom. Photo credit: Peter McCollough of the Daily Democrat.

I enjoy sharing stories about talented educators who have earned honors for their work in the classroom. One of these was Joanne Moldenhauer, a high school math teacher originally from Omaha, Nebraska.

Joanne was born on March 15, 1928, in Omaha. As a young girl, she attended Benson High School in her home town. In 1949, Joanne earned her Bachelor’s degree in Physics at Iowa State College. Three years later she completed the requirements for her Master’s degree from the University of Minnesota.

Joanne inaugurated her career as an educator when she accepted a position as a math teacher in Omaha. For the next two years she taught mathematics and biology at Central High School in Omaha. She worked for a while for the General Electric company, but by 1955, she was teaching high school math at Central Park Junior High School in Schenectady, New York, and the following year, she was teaching at Davis Senior High School in Davis, California. Her career there spanned 50 years, until her retirement in 2006.

During her years as a teacher in Davis, Joanne won many accolades for her work in the classroom. She garnered the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished High School Mathematics Teaching from the Mathematical Association of American two times, in 19990 and 2001. Stanford University honored her with their Frederick Emmons Terman Engineering Award, given each year to a distinguished high school teacher from the school’s graduating engineering students. She also earned the Harvey Mudd College Distinguished Teacher Award twice. In 1991, Joanne was one of the two first participants in the Uman-Davis Sister City Teacher Exchange in Ukraine.

This exceptional educator passed away on February 14, 2016. She was 87 years old. Joanne Moldenhauer: a true Chalkboard Champion.

 

Talented teacher and celebrated poet Rosemary Thomas

Posted on by

There are many talented educators who have also earned acclaim as authors. One of these was Rosemary Thomas, a creative writing instructor who also authored and published excellent poetry.

Rosemary was born on February 16, 1901. As a young woman, she earned her Bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1923. She earned her Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1950.

Rosemary taught creative writing at a number of prestigious schools, including Spence School and Brearley School in New York. She also taught at the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania, and Oxford Schooling Hartford, Connecticut.

The talented educator was also a successful poet. Her poems were published in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and in other distinguished magazines. In 1951, Rosemary garnered the Twayne First Book Contest for her inaugural book of poems, Immediate Sun. The book featured a foreword written by celebrated poet Archibald MacLeish, who described her poems as having “a common quality, a characteristic idiom, and inflection the reader would recognize again as a man recognizes the inflection of a decisive voice.” The volume included a poem about her brother-in-law, Canadian tennis star J. F. Foulkes, entitled The Colonel. A second collection of Rosemary’s poems entitled Selected Poems of Rosemary Thomas was published posthumously in 1968.

Rosemary passed away on April 7, 1961, in New York City. In her honor, the English Language and Literature Department at her alma mater, Smith College, awards the Rosemary Thomas Poetry Prize each year to the best poem or group of poems.