Category Archives: Education

Adelaide Cumming: Hers was the face of icon Betty Crocker

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The image of Betty Crocker, an American icon in the 1950’s, was actually Adelaide Cumming, an English teacher.

Betty Crocker was an icon of America womanhood in the 1950’s, but did you know the marketing image of the famous housewife was actually that of Adelaide Hawley Cumming, an English teacher?

This remarkable educator portrayed the fictional Betty Crocker on a weekly half-hour television show called The Betty Crocker Show. She also starred in walk-on commercials on the Burns & Allen Show, where comedian George Burns would say to his wife, “I don’t know how to bake a cake, Gracie, but here is Betty Crocker to show us how.”

Adelaide was born in 1905 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. A vaudeville performer and broadcast pioneer, Adelaide majored in piano and voice at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, New York. Following her graduation from college, she taught music for two and a half years at the Alabama College School of Music in Montevallo, Alabama.

From 1937 to 1950, the talented teacher was the host of the Adelaide Hawley Program, first on NBC radio and then on CBS. At the height of her career, Adelaide was a nationally recognized figure, second only to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. According to Adelaide’s daughter, Marcia Hayes, the teacher and actress was a feminist in her private life, and was not especially fond of cooking. “I am merely the manifestation of a corporate image,” she once told autograph-seeking fans. She practiced her autograph as Betty Crocker by copying the signature from the top of the cake mix box.

When General Mills replaced her with a more updated image in 1964, Adelaide went back to school, earning a doctorate in speech education from New York University in 1967. She taught English to second-language learners in Washington state until her death at age 93 in 1998, a career as an educator that spanned nearly thirty years.

To read more about the marketing of Betty Crocker, see this article entitled Betty Crocker: A Brief Biography.

Iowa’s Phyllis Love: Talented educator and successful actress

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Talented educator and former successful  actress Phyllis Love of Des Moines, Iowa.

There are many fine educators who enjoyed success in the entertainment industry before they became classroom teachers One of these was Iowa’s Phyllis Love, a television actress who also taught drama and English.

Phyllis was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on December 21, 1925. Her parents were both small business owners. Her father owned a food market and her mother owned and managed a small restaurant. As a youngster, Phyllis attended first Perkins Elementary School, then Callanan Junior High School, and finally Theodore Roosevelt High School, all in Des Moines. While in high school, one of Phyllis’s close friends was actress Chloris Leachman.

Once she graduated from high school in 1944, Phyllis attended the School of Dramatic Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. She earned her Bachelor’s degree there in 1948.

After college, Phyllis relocated to New York, where she honed her skills as an actress at the Actors Studio. Paul Newman and Marlon Brando were her classmates. Her talent earned her roles on Broadway and in the movies. She performed in The Rose Tattoo (1950), The Country Girl (1950), The Friendly Persuasion (1956), The Egghead (1957), A Distant Bell (1959), and Flowering Cherry (1959), and The Young Doctors (1961). She also performed in numerous roles on television, including appearances on Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The FBI, and Twilight Zone.

After Phyllis retired from acting in the 1970’s, she launched herself into her career as an educator. She taught Drama and English for 15 years at Morningside High School in Inglewood, California.

Sadly, in her later years, this talented educator and actress suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. She passed away on October 30, 2011, in Menifee, California. She was 85 years old. To read her obituary, see this link to the New York Times.

Henrietta Szold: Baltimore teacher and champion of Jewish children

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Henrietta Szold

Teacher and activist Henrietta Szold at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, circa 1920.

I love to tell stories about exceptional educators who have made significant contributions to the world community. One of these is Henrietta Szold, a Baltimore teacher and activist who worked tirelessly with an organization that helped save thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis.

Henrietta was born on December 21, 1860, in Baltimore, Maryland, the eldest of eight daughters. Her mother was Sophie (Scharr) Szold, and her father was Benjamin Szold, a local respected rabbi. As a young girl, she attended Western Female High School, where she graduated in 1877.

After her high school graduation, Henrietta taught courses in French, German, botany, and mathematics at Miss Adam’s School and Mrs. McCulloch’s School at Glencoe. She taught in these schools for 15 years. When Henrietta saw a need to educate newly-arrived immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, she urged the Hebrew Literary Society to sponsor a program to teach them English. As a result, the first evening adult classes in Baltimore were established. This was the beginning of adult education in the city, and the program became a model for adult education in other American cities. Henrietta also taught courses in history and Bible studies for adults at Oheb Shalom Religious School.

In addition to her classroom duties, Henrietta served as her father’s literary secretary for many years. She became the secretary of the editorial board of the Jewish Publication Society (JPS), a position she held until 1916. She translated works, wrote articles, edited manuscripts, and oversaw the publication schedule. In 1899 she was instrumental in producing the first American Jewish Year Book, of which she was sole editor from 1904 to 1908. She also collaborated on the compilation of the Jewish Encyclopedia.

Henrietta is probably best known, however, for founding the international volunteer organization known as Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. With the Nazis rise to power in Germany, Henrietta recognized the extreme danger the party presented to European Jews. In 1932, a plan called Youth Aliyah was developed to send German Jewish Adolescents to Palestine to complete their education. Youth Aliyah was able to save between 22,000 and 30,000 Jewish youths from World War II death camps.Sadly, Henrietta passed away from complications from pneumonia on February 13, 1945, in Jerusalem, Israel, at the age of 84. She is buried in the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Following her death, Israel issued a coin and a stamp in her memory, the first American woman to be featured on Israeli currency. Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007, Henrietta Szold is truly a chalkboard champion.

You can read more about this remarkable teacher in the Jewish Virtual Library.org.

Science educator Alex Joanis teaches Native American students

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Science teacher Alex Joanis works with Native American students on the Spokane Indian Reservation in the state of Washington.

Throughout our country, there are many talented and dedicated educators who work with culturally diverse groups of students. One of these is science teacher Alex Joanis, who works with Native American students on a reservation in the state of Washington.

Alex was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1995.  As an adolescent, he attended Santiago High School in Corona, California. After high school, he enrolled in California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in San Luis Obispo. There he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, cum laude, in 2017. He earned his teaching credential from the same college in 2018.

Alex cites several sources that influenced his decision to become an educator. First, he gives credit to his AP Chemistry teacher, Dr. Branton Lachman. “He was a great teacher who pushed me to do the best I could, and provided all of the resources and opportunities that I needed to achieve my academic potential and engage in authentic science learning,” Alex remembers.

Also, Alex says his experiences a a tutor deepened his resolve to go into the profession. “There’s a really neat feeling I get whenever I help someone else understand something they were struggling to get before,” he declares. “The light bulb goes off in their head, I can sense that, and I’m flush with a good feeling. It’s just nice to help people do the things they struggle to do on their own, and I like having that feeling,” he continued. “I also had an internship class in high school, where I got to drive down to my old elementary school and essentially act as a teacher’s assistant for two hours in one of the fifth grade classrooms. Just like how I loved the feeling of helping people ‘get stuff,’ I loved the feeling of building rapport with a group and being relied on for help,” he concluded.

After his student teaching experience at Templeton High School in Templeton, San Luis Obispo County, California, Alex accepted a teaching position at Wellpinit High School in the state of Washington. Alex has taught there for two years, instructing courses in biology, physics, chemistry, food science, and environmental science. The Wellpinit School District is a K-12 public school system located on the Spokane Indian Reservation. The school’s minority enrollment is 94%, and 82% of students are economically disadvantaged.

“Because I’m at a very small school, I get to sink more time into building relationships with the few students I have,” asserts Alex. “I’ve really taken a liking to this year’s sophomore class. They’re very easy-going, and now that I understand them better as individuals and as a group, I’m able to get them to engage more with the content and buy into the educational experiences I’m trying to give them,” he says.

In addition to his classroom responsibilities, Alex is one of two advisers for the sophomore class. He’s also working with a colleague to revitalize extra-curricular clubs that would provide students with leadership opportunities.

What advice would Alex share with fellow educators? He suggests that it is important to remember that there are students in your classroom that recognize the work you put into it and appreciate what you do. “Real recognizes real,” he says, “and as long as you present yourself authentically and do the best you can, you will have students that recognize that, respect the work you do, and put in some effort,” he advises.

Alex Joanis: A true Chalkboard Champion.

Educator Anna DiGilio: She’s earned phenomenal success in the business world

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Second grade educator Anna DiGilio of New York has earned phenomenal success in the business world.

Many excellent educators also enjoy phenomenal success in the business world. One teacher who took her superb abilities from the classroom to the business arena is elementary teacher Anna DiGilio of New York. She has harnessed the power of the Internet for her business, and in just a few short years she has built a million-dollar business. In addition to her business success, she continues to impact the educational community in numerous ways.

Anna taught second grade for a total of 23 years. She inaugurated her career in education in the Yonkers Public School District in New York. In 1998, she transferred to the Briarcliff Manor School District. She taught second grade there for 18 years.

In 2012, Anna was doing some internet research looking for some ideas for her classroom. She came across the website Teachers Pay Teachers. There she found that teachers were creating lesson plans, activities, and classroom decor resources digitally. They were selling these instructional items to other teachers through this site. Anna quickly realized that using this site could be a way to earn some extra money. She began creating branded resources and product lines that would build a name for herself in the online teaching community. She created her own brands such as Flip Flap Books, Tab-Its, Spin-Its, Teach-Its, and others.

“Being a teacher at heart, I was still all about the learning,” remembers Anna. “I spent every waking moment creating my resources, reading books, listening to podcasts, and taking online courses to help me build a more significant business, and to ultimately help teachers have a substantial impact in their classrooms,” she continued. Within two years, Anna managed to sell so many materials online that she doubled her teaching salary. That’s when she decided to retire from teaching and devote her talents to curriculum design full-time.

In January, 2017, Anna launched a membership website for second and third grade teachers called Simply Skilled Teaching. The website provides teachers with guided reading books, lesson plans, and activities to help them provide rigorous and creative reading instruction for their students. In April, 2018, Anna expanded her business when she launched an online Professional Development Workshop for teachers and school districts called Guided Math that Works. This company is an online program that teaches educators how to implement Guided Math framework into their classrooms. The program allows teachers to differentiate their mathematics instruction based on the individual levels of each student. The professional development workshop has been a great success, and Anna has sold this program to over 500 individual teachers and over 30 school districts in the first two months of the program’s existence.

“It has been a long journey up to this point, but I couldn’t be happier,” Anna confesses. “Not only am I helping teachers on a daily basis, I feel like I get to be a little part of their students’ lives as well,” she concluded.

To learn more about Anna’s success in the business world, read this interview published online by Forbes. Click on this link to visit the website Teachers Pay Teachers.