Barbara Henry: The teacher who helped Ruby Bridges integrate a New Orleans school

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Left, elementary school teacher Barbara Henry with her former student, Ruby Bridges. At right, Ruby Bridges attending William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1960.

There are many courageous Chalkboard Champions in American history who have worked diligently to improve social conditions for all their students. One of these was Barbara Henry, an elementary teacher from New Orleans who sought to help integrate Louisiana schools during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. She was the teacher of Ruby Bridges, who was the first African American student to attend an all-white school in her city.

Barbara as born January 1, 1932. As a young girl, she attended Girls’ Latin School in Boston. There, she says, she “learned to appreciate and enjoy our important commonalities, amid our external differences of class, community, or color.”

Barbara inaugurated her career as a teacher overseas in schools for military dependents. Those schools were integrated. When she returned to the United States, the adventurous educator and her husband settled in New Orleans. She accepted a position at William Frantz Elementary School.

In 1960, little Ruby Bridges enrolled in the school. Barbara volunteered to teach Ruby, but the decision prompted white parents to remove their children from the class. For more than a year Barbara taught Ruby as her only student in the classroom.

At first, Ruby was nervous about meeting her new teacher, especially when confronted with loud protests going on outside the school. “I had never seen a white teacher before,” Ruby remembered, “but Mrs. Henry was the nicest teacher I ever had. She tried very hard to keep my mind off what was going on outside. But I couldn’t forget that there were no other kids,” she said.

The intrepid and courageous Barbara Henry: A true Chalkboard Champion. To read Barbara’s story in her own words, see this essay written by her published by Scholastic: In Her Own Words.

Rhode Island’s Elizabeth Russillo named her state’s Teacher of the Year

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Rhode Island’s Elizabeth Russillo has been named her state’s Teacher of the Year.

I enjoy sharing stories about teachers who have earned accolades for their hard work in the classroom. One of these is Elizabeth Russillo, who has been named the Rhode Island’s State Teacher of the Year.

Elizabeth teaches chemistry at Smithfield Senior High School in Smithfield, Rhode Island. She has worked there since 2002. For the past ten years, this talented educator has been the chairperson of the school’s Science Department. In this role, she has developed innovative programs in her classroom. She even created a website with resources for blended and personalized learning. In addition to her classroom duties, Elizabeth has served her school as the Freshman Mentor Adviser, Student Council Coordinator, and tennis coach.

Elizabeth has made contributions to the educational community outside of her classroom. She has created videos teaching professional development to educators who wish to use technology in their classrooms. She has also worked with the Rhode Island Department of Education as a Rhode Island Learning Champion, helping to revise state graduation standards and rubrics. As an EdPrep fellow, she worked to improve educational pathways for future teachers. She writes regularly on the teaching profession and has served as a learning coach for educators around her state as a Highlander Institute Fuse Fellow.

In addition to her State Teacher of the Year honors, Elizabeth was named Smithfield Teacher of the Year in 2018, an honor that was symbolized with a Crystal Owl in honor of this distinction. Horace Mann recognizes educators for their outstanding work or a significant achievement in teaching.

To read more about this exemplary educator, follow this link to a story in the Providence Journal.

Mary Tsukamoto: The teacher who spent WWII in an American internment camp

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Mary Tsukamoto

Japanese American teacher Mary Tsukamoto was incarcerated in an American internment camp during World War II.

At the start of World War II, Mary Tsukamoto was living a quiet life as the wife of a strawberry farmer in a diminuitive Japanese-American community in Florin, Northern California. Then Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941. That event, “a day that will live in infamy,” suddenly turned Mary’s quiet life upside-down.

Mary was one of 120,000 other persons of Japanese descent living on the West Coast. Most of them were American citizens. Mary and the many others in the Japanese American community were forced into a relocation camp by the US government because their loyalty to our country was questioned. Evicted from their home, Mary, her husband, their five-year-old daughter, her elderly in-laws, her teenaged brother and sisters, and other members of her family wound up in a camp in Jerome, Arkansas. There they were incarcerated until authorities were convinced this family of farmers posed no threat to national security.

While detained in the camp, Mary became part of a prisoner-organized effort to provide meaningful educational opportunities for the imprisoned children. Mary taught speech courses for the high school students and English language classes for the elderly. Once she was released from the camp and the war was over, Mary enrolled in college. She completed her degree and became an elementary schoolteacher. In fact, she was one of the first certificated Japanese American teachers in the United States.

This intrepid teacher’s remarkable story is told in her autobiography, We the People, a volume which unfortunately is now out of print. However, with some effort, it can be found through second-hand book sellers or in some libraries (check WorldCat), and it is well worth the hunt. You can read also read her story in my first book, Chalkboard Champions, available through amazon.com.

Lisa Bagley of Texas earns 2020 Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year award

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Lisa Bagley of Texas earned a 2020 Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year award. Lisa teaches AP Environmental Science and Computer Science at West Mesquite High School.

I always enjoy sharing stories about talented classroom teachers who have earned accolades for their work. One of these is Lisa Bagley, an AP Environmental Science and Computer Science teacher at West Mesquite High School. She is one of ten educators nationwide who has been selected as a 2020 Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year.

As part of her award, Lisa received a prize package valued at more than $50,000 for West Mesquite High. The package includes $25,000 for the school and an additional $25,000 in computer supplies, including Amazon Fire HD 8 Tablets. Lisa also received one year subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited and a 12-month membership from Audible.com.

“I am incredibly thankful to have the ability to deepen that impact through this award!” Lisa expressed. “The award will allow us to purchase the technology we need for our scholars, facilitate training for our computer science and engineering teachers, and strengthen the STEM pipeline from our feeder middle schools so that our West Mesquite students have every opportunity to showcase their excellence!” she continued.

In addition to her classroom responsibilities, Lisa serves as a consultant and mentor for the National Math and Science Initiative in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. She has also served for the past six years as a reader for AP Environmental Science for the College Board located in New York.

Lisa earned her Bachelor’s degree at Rice University in Anthropology in Houston, Texas, in 1994. She earned her Master’s degree in Anthropology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, in 1998. She worked for the Dallas Independent School District for five years and she has taught in the Mesquite Independent School District for the past seven years.

To read more about Lisa, follow this link to an article about her published in the Dallas Morning News.