Category Archives: Education

Physics teacher and Survivor winner Robert Crowley of Maine

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Physics teacher and Survivor winner Robert Crowley of Gorham, Maine.

Once in awhile a dedicated educator earns fame in an arena outside of the classroom. One of these educators is Robert Crowley, who earned fame for winning the reality TV show Survivor.

Robert participated in the 17th season of the popular show. At age 57, he became the oldest winner in the history of the series. At the time of the episode’s airing, he was teaching physics at Gorham High School in Gorham, Maine.

Robert retired from teaching in 2009, but while he was teaching, he held a number of other jobs in addition to his responsibilities in the classroom. He worked as the first mate on a research boat for the Smithsonian Institution in Canada. He also worked as an entomologist for the USDA. In addition, he acted as a skunk relocater. And he served as the President, Vice President, and Chief Negotiator for his local Teachers’ Union. Robert also nurtured various personal interests, including journal writing, storytelling, photography, bone collecting, archeology, and camping.

After Survivor, this remarkable teacher wrote a book, and he later opened a luxury camping company called Maine Forest Yurts. The resort welcomes school groups, active military and veterans, and non-profit groups, like the Special Olympics, to stay in yurts free of charge. He also created a Survivor-based charity event called the Durham Warriors Survival Challenge to financially support the enterprise.

Robert was born February 25, 1951. Robert earned his Bachelor’s degree in forestry from the University of Maine, Orono, and his Master’s degree in Education from the University of Southern Maine.

To read more about this remarkable educator, see this link at the CBS shor Survivor.

Eleanor Roosevelt: Dedicated teacher, social activist, and US First Lady

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Beloved First Lady and social activist Eleanor Roosevelt  began her career in public service as a teacher. She is pictured here at the time of her debut in 1902.

It is common knowledge that Eleanor Roosevelt was a popular First Lady who served our county during the presidency of her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He served during the Great Depression and World War II. During that period, Eleanor worked tirelessly to advance her husband’s social and political agenda. But did you know that this great lady was a teacher before her marriage to FDR?

Eleanor Roosevelt was born into an aristocratic family in New York city. Her mother died when Eleanor was quite young, and her father was an alcoholic. As a child, she was socially and physically awkward and starved for attention. When her father also passed away, young Eleanor became a ward of her maternal grandmother.

Eleanor was educated by private tutors until she was 15 years old. Then her grandmother sent her to private finishing school, the Allenswood Academy, in England. There Eleanor flourished under the guidance of the school’s headmistress, Marie Souvestre, who encouraged social responsibility and independence for young women. When Eleanor completed her formal education at age 18, she returned to New York City. There she made her social debut in 1902, according to the customs of her social class. 

After Eleanor’s debut, she shunned the social life of a debutante that her family expected her to follow. Instead, she turned her boundless energy into progressive projects that helped improve the lives and working conditions of immigrants and those living in poverty. She joined an organization known as the Junior League, and helped established a community center known as the Rivington Street Settlement House on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The center specialized in teaching life skills and vocational skills. Many of the center’s clients were children who worked long hours in the confined spaces of sweat shops. These children did not have many opportunities to engage in physical exercise and movement. To help them improve their health, Eleanor worked as a dance teacher and calisthenics instructor.

Because of her work at the Junior League, Eleanor Roosevelt found her voice as a social activist long before she became First lady. Her work at there was the start of a career in public service that extended even after she left the White House.

To learn more about this amazing historical figure, see this link at the National First Ladies Library.

 

Educator Lucy Foster Madison becomes popular 20th century novelist

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The “Peggy Owen” series written by teacher Lucy Foster Madison was very popular with young girls in the early 20th century.

Many fine educators earn accolades for endeavors outside of the classroom. One of these is Lucy Foster Madison, a teacher from Missouri who became a famous novelist.

Lucy was born in Kirksville, Adair County, Missouri, on April 8, 1865, just as the Civil War was coming to a conclusion. When she was just a teenager, both her parents and her brother died, leaving Lucy to raise her two younger sisters by herself. In 1881, she graduated with high honors from high school in Louisiana, Missouri.  After her high school graduation, she completed courses at the State Normal School of Kirksville. There she studied Latin, French, and music under private tutelage. Lucy became a school teacher first in Louisiana, Missouri, and later in Kansas City, Missouri.

In 1893, Lucy entered a short story competition sponsored by a New York newspaper. She won second place with her entry. This event launched her career as a writer of novels and short stories. Her “Peggy Owen” series for girls were popular in the 20th century. Some of the outstanding books she published between 1899 and 1928 are A Maid of the First Century, A Maid at King Alfred’s Court, A Colonial Maid, A Daughter of the Union, Peggy Owen: Patriot, Peggy Owen at Yorktown, Peggy Owen and Liberty, Joan of Arc, Lafayette, A Life of Washington for Young People, and Lincoln.

In 1924, Lucy Foster Madison and her husband moved to a farm near Hudson Falls, Washington County, New York. In 1932, the former teacher suffered a stroke and passed away a few days later. She was 66 years old.

To read some of Lucy’s works on Project Gutenberg, click on this link: Lucy Foster Madison.

Teacher Aki Kurose: Civil Rights activist and advocate for minority students

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Elementary school teacher Aki Kurose: Dedicated civil rights activist and ardent activist for minority students.

American history yields numerous examples of inspirational teachers who have devoted their talents to important social causes. These causes include advocating for better conditions for the poor and promoting racial equality. One such teacher is Akiko Kato Kurose, an elementary school teacher from Seattle, Washington. She was a nationally-recognized social activist who worked tirelessly to increase access to education and affordable housing for low-income and minority families.

Akiko, known by the name Aki, was born in Seattle, Washington, on February 11, 1925. She was the third of four children born to Japanese immigrants Harutoshi and Murako Kato. Aki’s father was a railroad station porter, and her mother was the manager of an apartment building. In the Kato home, traditional gender roles were reversed. Aki’s mother studied engineering. She learned how to operate the building’s boiler room and furnace, and served as the building’s handyman. Her father enjoyed baking jelly rolls which he served at social gatherings he organized every Friday evening.

As a young girl, Aki was active in Girl Scouts, and  later in her high school band and drama club. She also attended Japanese language school once a week. OIn December, 1941, the Kato family’s typical American middle-class home life was dramatically altered. That happened when the Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Aki was a high school senior at the time. In February, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which ordered the Kato family and 112,000 other Japanese Americans to be forcibly removed from their homes to be relocated to internment camps throughout the United States. The Katos were sent first to Puyallup Assembly Center at the Washinton fairgrounds, and were eventually consigned to the internment camp set up in Minidoka, Idaho.

Aki completed the requirements for her high school diploma at Minidoka. There the plucky teenager became actively involved with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The AFSC was a Quaker organization which donated books to camp schools and helped college-age internees obtain permission to enroll in universities outside of the camps. Aki was able to gain permission to enroll in the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, but shortly after her arrival there she transferred to nearby LDS Business College. At the conclusion of WWII, the Aki pursued her college education at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. In 1981, she earned a Master’s degree in Early Childhood Education.

After her graduation from Friends University in 1948, Aki married Junelow Kurose, the brother of her best friend. Junelow had been recently discharged from the United States Army. After their marriage, Aki and Junelow settled in Chicago, where her husband’s parents had moved following their release from internment. Junelow was an accomplished electrician, but due to discrimination against Japanese American citizens, he was unable to find work in that field. This was true even though he was a veteran who had been honorably discharged.

Returning to Seattle in 1950, Junelow was eventually hired as a machinist at Boeing. Aki found employment as a secretary for the railroad porter’s union. Influenced by the discrimination she and her husband faced in their search for a home, Aki became involved in the open housing movement in the 1950s. She worked first with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and later, in the 1960s, joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Over the years, the couple enlarged their family to include six children. Aki enrolled her brood in Seattle Freedom School, an offshoot of the Mississippi Freedom Schools established as part of the Civil Rights Movement. When she participated in CORE civil rights marches and anti-war demonstrations, Aki took her children along. She was also active in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the activist branches of the YWCA.

Aki possessed a lifelong passion for education, so she began taking courses in early childhood education and development and devoted her talents to working in preschool programs. In 1965, she collaborated with a group of neighborhood parents to form Washington State’s first Head Start program.

Aki began her career as a professional educator by teaching for Seattle Public Schools through the Head Start program. In 1974, she accepted a job at a local elementary school. Two years later, as part of the city’s move to desegregate its public schools, she transferred from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, an urban, predominantly African-American school, to Laurelhurst Elementary School. Laurelhurst was an affluent, predominately white school located in suburban North Seattle. Because of strong anti-Japanese sentiment, Aki had to work hard to overcome opposition to her transfer there, but she eventually won over the parents. When the first students of color were bused to the campus, Aki worked hard to ease their integration. She also advocated strongly for the adoption of a multi-cultural curriculum for the school.

In the classroom, Aki emphasized collaborative learning and encouraged her students to learn through hands-on experience instead of rote memorization. She taught principals of peaceful co-existence to even the youngest of students, her first graders, telling them, “If you’re not at peace with yourself, with your neighbor, with your community, you can’t really learn very much. We have to get rid of all this garbage, this angry, competitive feeling. Then we’ll all get along.” She received numerous awards for her innovative teaching style.

Over time, Aki became one of the schools most beloved and respected teachers. In 1980 she was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children. In 1985 she was honored as Seattle Teacher of the Year. In 1990 she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics. Because of her innovative work to integrate peace advocacy with education, she was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Award in 1992. The Seattle Times said of Aki that she had “touched thousands of children, drew parents into the district, inspired many into public service, set an example for many teachers; she personified the best of what happens inside a classroom.”

This talented and dedicated educator retired in 1997 after 25 years of service in Seattle public schools. To honor her, students and parents from Laurelhurst school built and dedicated the Aki Kurose Peace Garden on the school campus. This Chalkboard Champion passed away the following year, on May 24, in Madrona, Washington, following a 16-year battle with cancer. She was 73 years old.

To read more about this amazing Chalkboard Champion, see this link at Densho Encyclopedia.

Virginia teacher LaToya McGriff inspires with Black History Month lessons

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Although February is over, I want to share just one more story about Black History Month celebrations with you. The story features first grade teacher LaToya McGriff who works at Creekside Elementary School in Suffolk, Virginia.

Every day last month, LaToya dressed up as a different African American trailblazer. Then she shared that individuals important contribution to US history. She started with NASA mathematician Mary Jackson. Mary was profiled in the book and film Hidden Figures, which shared the story of three African American female mathematicians whose efforts helped put men on the moon. LaToya also featured jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, tennis star Arthur Ashe, the first African American man to win the U.S. Open, educator Booker T. Washington, and ballerina Misty Copeland, among others.

LaToya says the practice kept her students curious and asking questions, and she hopes the overall project will give them the confidence to know that, like these important historical figures, they can be great, too!

To learn more, see this short video posted by CBS News on You Tube: