Houston teachers jump into action when school floods

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When the going gets tough, the teachers get going! Teachers at Durham Elementary School in Houston, Texas, proved that this week when Tropical Storm Imelda flooded their school.

When the storm made landfall last Tuesday, it dumped nearly four feet of water on the city in just 72 hours. The deluge caused severe flooding throughout the area. When the water level rose in the hallways of the school, quick-thinking teachers jumped into action, using benches to create an elevated walkway for their students. Balancing on the benches, the kids were able to pass through the hallways without getting their feet wet.

One of the school’s teachers, who wishes to remain anonymous, made a video of the incident “to share the circumstances that the students and faculty face every time it rains,” she explained. “It showed teachers jumping into action and doing what was necessary to make sure those students felt safe and secure,” she continued. “The students are the priority and nothing else mattered in that moment,” the chalkboard champion concluded.

Durham teachers, you are heroes!

Clarence Leon “Brick” Mitchell: High school PE teacher, football player, and coach

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Clarence Leon “Brick” Mitchell: PE teacher, football player, and coach

Many fine educators also enjoy success in professions other than teaching. One of these is Brick Mitchell, a high school physical education teacher who also earned fame as a football player and college football coach.

Brick was born Clarence Leon Mitchell, but was always known by his nickname, “Brick.” His birth year is believed to be 1894. As a young man, Brick played college football at the University of Oregon from 1915 to 1918, when World War I was in full swing. I 1916, he was selected to the All-Pacific Coast football team. He played the position of end. During his college years, Brick played three games in the Rose Bowl.

In the 1920s, Brick coached football at San Mateo High School in San Mateo, California. The school is located 20 miles south of San Francisco. In 1926 Coach Mitchell led his team to its first state championship. Next, Brick worked as a line coach at the University of California, Berkeley. From there he was hired as the Head Football Coach at the University of Nevada, Reno. He coached there from 1932 to 1935. During those years, he led his team, the Wolf Pack, to a record of 10 wins, 20 losses, and 3 ties

In 1958, Brick returned to the high school. There he taught physical education, mechanical drawing, and math at Oroville High School in Oroville, California. Oroville is a public high school located in the rural northern valley at the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills, about 70 miles north of Sacramento.

Sadly, Brick Mitchell passed away on October 21, 1963, at the University of California Hospital in San Francisco. He was 69 years old. To read more about this amazing coach and educator, see this link at Wikipedia.

Ellen Gray Massey: English teacher, author, and public speaker

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Ellen Gray Massey: High school English teacher and successful author.

I love to share stories about talented classroom teachers who make a name for themselves in professions other than teaching. One of these is Ellen Gray Massey, a high school English teacher who was also a successful author.

Ellen Massey was born November 14, 1921.  She was raised near Nevada, Missouri. Young Ellen earned her Bachelor’s degree in English at the University of Maryland. Following her college graduation, she returned to Missouri, where she settled in the small Ozarks town of Lebanon. There Ellen taught high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors. In addition, she served as the adviser for their school magazine, Bittersweet. Her career as a teacher spanned 23 years.

I love Ozarkers’ self-sufficiency, wit, and pioneer spirit,” Ellen once declared. “When I heard students say there wasn’t anything interesting in the area, I wanted them to appreciate their heritage,” she continued. Former student Kirk Pierce was one student who benefited from the effort. “She really got us interested in our family history,” he recalled. Kirk later wrote historical features for the local paper, Lebanon Daily Record.

Once Ellen retired from teaching in 1986, she published local color stories in a series of books that eventually numbered 29. She also published short stories and articles celebrating her home town. In addition, she became a sought-after public speaker. She delivered 428 public speeches, 120 of them for the Missouri Humanities Council. Most of her talks were given in Missouri, but she also spoke to groups in Arkansas, Illinois, Connecticut, Washington, DC, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Washington state. She also taught classes on Ozarks Heritage and Ozarks Adventures programs in Branson, Missouri. In addition, she taught 33 graduate education courses at Drury University of Springfield, Missouri.

For her work as an author, Ellen earned many accolades. She garnered the coveted Western Writers Spur Award in the Juvenile Fiction category in 2014. The Missouri Writers Guild honored Ellen with 12 first place writing awards in several categories. In 1995, she became one of the first inductees into the Writers Hall of Fame of America.

Ellen Massey passed away on July 13, 2014. She was 92 years old. She is buried in Mount Rose Memorial Park in Lebanon. To read more about this amazing chalkboard champion, click on this article about her published on the website of the Truman University.

Fanny Allen: School teacher and nationally renowned photographer

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Fanny Allen, school teacher, internationally renowned photographer, and member of the Deerfield Arts and Crafts Movement. Photograph by Mary Allen, c. 1906.

Many talented educators earn fame in fields outside the classroom. One of these is Fanny Allen, an elementary schoolteacher from Deerfield, Massachusetts who became a nationally renowned photographer.

Fanny, whose birth name was Frances Stebbins Allen, was born on August 10, 1854, in Deerfield, Franklin County, Massachusetts. She was the oldest of four children born to local farmer Josiah Allen and his wife Mary Stebbins Allen. Deerfield is a small farming town and early colonial outpost founded in the late 1600s in the western part of the state.

As a young girl, Fanny attended the local school, Deeerfield Academy. After she graduated from Deerfield, she enrolled in State Normal School in Westfield, Massachusetts. After earning her degree, Fanny launched her career as a schoolteacher. From 1876 to 1886 she taught in schools in the Massachusetts counties of Greenfield and Worcester. Her younger sister, Mary, also became a schoolteacher.

Sadly, both sisters lost their hearing in their thirties, most likely due to a hereditary condition. Fanny and Mary were forced to leave the classroom, and they needed a new way to support themselves. Together, the former schoolteachers took up a new career in photography. As photographers, they captured images that idealized their town’s colonial history. Many of their photographs depicted Deerfield’s picturesque farms and its one leafy street lined with fine 18th-century houses. The amazing thing is, the sisters were self-taught!

The Allen sisters set up a salesroom for their work in their ancestral home, and were soon supporting themselves with their sales. By 1895, they enjoyed commercial success, and even enjoyed national acclaim. In the July, 1941 issue of Ladies Home Journal, the former teachers were hailed as two of the “Foremost Women Photographers of America.”

Many of the Allen sisters’ photographs were attributed to “The Misses Allen,” rather than to one sister or the other. In 1899, the Allen sisters joined the Arts & Crafts Movement in their home city, and spent their energy documenting the works of the local members. In 1907, Franny Allen was elected the Director of Photography of the Society of Deerfield Industries. In addition, their work has been added to the collection of the Library of Congress.

Fanny Allen passed away on February 14, 1941. She was 86 years old. She is interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Franklin County, Deerfield. To read more about this chalkboard champion, click on this link to Deerfield Arts & Crafts.

Involving students’ parents and guardians in their learning

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I love this Best Practices suggestion from teacher Justin Parmenter and published on the Teacher2Teacher website. At his school’s recent Open House, he asked parents and guardians to respond to this prompt on a note card. He collected the note cards so he could share them with students who need encouragement at some time throughout the year. How do you involve your students’ parents and guardians in their learning?