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.

Innovative educator Mary Catherine Swanson: Founder of AVID

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Innovative educator Mary Catherine Swanson developed the AVID program to help minority students develop the skills necessary to succeed in college. Today, the program is employed globally in at least 16 countries. Photo Credit: www.avid.org

Back in 1980, Clairemont High School in San Diego, California, suddenly faced a court-ordered integration order. Teachers at the predominantly white, suburban, middle-class school knew that their incoming minority students would need extensive remediation. As Clairemont’s staff scrambled for ways to meet the needs of these students, one innovative staff member came up with a groundbreaking idea. That staff member was English teacher Mary Catherine Swanson.

Mary Catherine believed strongly that with appropriate academic tools and support, minority and other under-represented students could succeed in a rigorous academic atmosphere just as well as their Clairemont classmates. To meet their needs, she developed an innovative instructional program called Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID). The program trained students in strategies for note-taking and test-taking, offered peer mentoring and tutoring, and sponsored cultural field trips.

Mary Catherine’s efforts produced astonishing results. Since the program’s inception, over 400,000 students have participated in the training. The program is so successful that today over 7,000 high schools in 47 states and 16 countries around the world have implemented it. Statistics show that of those students enrolled in AVID, 95% go on to enroll in a four-year college, and 85% of them graduate. To learn more about the AVID program, go to www.avid.org.

The overwhelming success of Mary Catherine’s work has earned her many honors. Among them are an A+ Award for Reaching the Goals of America 2000 from the US Department of Education; the EXCEL Award for Excellence in Teaching; and the Salute to Excellence from the American Association for Higher Education. She has also been recognized with the UC San Diego Remarkable Leader in Education Award and the Distinguished Achievement Award by the UC Davis Cal Aggie Alumni Association. She has also been recognized with honorary doctorates from UC San Diego and the University of LaVerne. Both CNN and Time Magazine named her America’s Best Teacher in 2001, and she was one of three 2001 recipients of the Harold W. McGraw, Jr., Prize in Education. Furthermore, Mary Catherine’s contribution to American education has been recognized by Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews, who wrote, “I don’t know any single person in the country who has done more for our school children than AVID founder Mary Catherine Swanson.”

Mary Catherine Swanson retired in 2006, but she will always be known as a genuine Chalkboard Champion.

WI Physical Ed teacher Ellen Tronnier once played in All-American Girls Baseball League

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Wisconsin physical education teacher Ellen Tronnier played as an outfielder in the All-American girls Professional Baseball League during World War II. Photo Credit: AAGPBL

Many excellent teachers have also earned fame as talented athletes. One of these was Ellen Tronnier, a Wisconsin physical education teacher who once played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II. Those who are familiar with the 1992 movie A League of their Own starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, and Madonna know very well about this unique group of women athletes.

Ellen, who played as an outfielder, was 5’6″ and 135 pounds. She batted and threw right-handed. After making it through two grueling try-outs, she earned a position in the league playing on a team called the South Bend Blue Sox. Having been born in Cudahy, Wisconsin, on June 28, 1927, she was only 15 years old at the time.

After only one season on the team, Ellen decided to pursue her education. She left the league and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. After she completed her degree there, she taught physical education in the Milwaukee Public School District. She taught at both South Division High School and Sholes Middle School. Her career as a teacher spanned a total of 33 years. During these years, which included the 1970s, Ellen opened a baseball school for girls sponsored by the Milwaukee Recreation Department.

While she was still teaching, Ellen, played club softball for 27 years, competing in numerous tournaments. She was an accomplished fast pitch softball player, and the teams she played with won several league, state, and regional championships. In 1956, her club won three National Invitational Tournaments.

When the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Cooperstown, New York, an entire section of exhibits was dedicated to the All-Girls League. Ellen was recognized as one of the 560 women who had, at one time or another, played in the league. In 1990, Ellen was inducted into the Wisconsin Softball Association Hall of Fame. Even throughout her retirement, the former teacher remained active, encouraging young women to engage in competitive sports while she signed baseball cards and reminisced about the days when she payed baseball.

Sadly, Ellen Tronnier passed away on May 21, 2015, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was 87 years old. She was interred at Arlington Park Cemetery in Greenfield, Wisconsin.

 

Harold Jackman: Teacher, model, literary editor, and charismatic patron the arts

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New York Social Studies teacher Harold Jackman was a model, magazine editor, and charismatic patron of the arts during the Harlem Renaissance. Here he is depicted in the 1925 drawing A College Lad. Photo Credit: Winold Reiss

New York Social Studies teacher Harold Jackman was a model, magazine editor, and charismatic patron of the arts during the Harlem Renaissance. Here he is depicted in the 1925 drawing A College Lad. Photo Credit: Winold Reiss

II always enjoy shining a spotlight on exceptional educators who have earned accolades for their outstanding achievements outside of the classroom. Today, I shine the light on Harold Jackman, a very accomplished African American social studies teacher, model, and magazine editor in New York City.

Harold was born on Aug. 18, 1901, in London, England. When he was a child, he immigrated to the United States with his mother, who was originally from the West Indies, and his brother. Once the family landed in the Bronx borough of New York City, Harold attended the prestigious all-boys school DeWitt Clinton High School. In 1923 he earned a Bachelor’s degree from New York University and in 1927 he completed the requirements for his Master’s degree from Columbia University. He then inaugurated his career as a professional educator. In a career that spanned 30 years, Harold taught social studies in New York City Public Schools in Harlem.

In addition to his work in the schools, Harold worked as a model at the Grace Del Marco Agency. He served as the model for Winold Reiss in his 1925 drawing A College Lad. Harold was also a patron of of the arts, most notably African American theater. He was a founding member for the Krigwa Players Little Negro Theater in 1926, and he helped establish the Harlem Experimental theater in 1929. He was also a member of the American Theater Wing State Door Canteen during the 1940s. Furthermore, Harold served on the Executive Board of the Negro Actors Guild.

Harold had many friends in artistic spheres. One of his best friends was Countee Cullen, a school friend from Clinton DeWitt who became a renowned poet of the Harlem Renaissance. In fact, Countee Cullen dedicated his famous poem “Heritage” to Harold. Very interested in literary pursuits, Harold served as the Associate Editor of New Challenge Magazine from 1935 to 1937. He also served as a contributing editor to Phylon from 1944 to 1956 and an advisory editor from 1957 to 1961. The charismatic teacher also served as the inspiration for several fictional characters. He appears in Wallace Thurman’s Infants of Spring, Carl Van Vechten’s Nigger Heaven, and Ben Neihart’s Rough Amusements, The True Story of A’Lelia Walker, Patroness of the Harlem Renaissance’s Down-Low Culture.

Sadly, this remarkable teacher succumbed to cancer at a hospital in Maine on July 8, 1961. After his passing, Harold Jackman’s diaries, manuscripts, correspondence, and other personal papers were donated to Atlanta University, where they became part of the Cullen-Jackman Memorial Collection in recognition of their historic value. In addition, the Harold Jackman Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to art in New York was established in his honor.

Teacher Anna Williams served as model for America’s “Lady Liberty” coin

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Anna Willess Williams

Philadelphia teacher Anna Willess Williams served as the model for “Lady Liberty” on the Morgan silver dollar coin.

Frequently talented educators become famous for reasons that have nothing to do with the field of education. This is true of Anna Willess Williams, a Philadelphia schoolteacher who is best known for being the model for the image of Lady Liberty on the Morgan silver dollar coin.

Anna was born in Philadelphia in 1857. In 1876, when she was just an eighteen-year-old art student, she was asked to pose for engraver George T. Morgan, an acquaintance of a friend of her father, who had just been commissioned to produce a new series of coin designs for the US Mint. For his design, Morgan wanted to use the image of an American girl. After rejecting several candidates, Morgan selected Anna as his model because was so impressed with her profile. He once commented that it was the most perfect he had seen in the country. He described her as being fair in complexion, “with blue eyes and a Grecian nose,” with hair that was “almost her crowning glory… golden color, abundant, and light of texture,” worn in an attractive classical style.

After being promised that her identity would always be kept confidential, the young art student sat for five sessions in November, 1876. By the time the silver dollar bearing her likeness was first struck on March 11, 1878, Anna had begun her career as a classroom teacher. To Anna’s dismay, her identity as the image’s model was revealed shortly after the coin was released, resulting in instant fame. Anna received thousands of letters and visits at both her home and work place, and she was very disturbed by the attention. In her later years, she preferred not to discuss her modelling work with Morgan, dismissing the experience as an “incident of my youth.”

Anna refused offers for acting and stage work, and chose to continue in her position as a teacher at the House of Refuge. In 1891, she left her job as the principal of that school to become a teacher of kindergarten philosophy at Girls’ Normal School in Philadelphia. Though she was once engaged to an unknown suitor, Anna never married.

She retired from the teaching profession in 1924. This Chalkboard Champion passed away from complications suffered from a bad fall on April 17, 1926, at the age of sixty-eight.