Alaska teacher and State Senator Jan Faiks

Posted on by
Jan Faiks

Alaska teacher and state senator Jan Faiks working with her llamas.

Talented classroom teachers often go on to have successful careers in politics. One teacher who proves this to be true is Jan Faiks, a math teacher and school counselor who served in the Alaska State Senate.

Janice O. Faiks was born on November 17, 1945, at Mitchel Air Force Base in New York. As a young girl, she attended Choctawhatchee High School, where she graduated in 1964. After her high school graduation, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics at Florida State University in 1967. She earned a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, in 1975.

After college, Jan taught mathematics and worked as a school counselor in the Anchorage School District. She worked there from 1968 to 1978. In addition to her work in the classroom, the educator was well known for operating a llama farm.

In 1982, Jan was elected to the Alaska State Senate on the Republican ticked. She served two terms, and became the first woman president of the Alaska State Senate. While there, her biggest claim to fame was that she was one of the key legislators to create the Constitutional Budge Reserve, a savings fund for surplus tax revenues that could be used in times of economic downturn.

After her service in the state senate, Jan moved to Washington, DC, where she earned a law degree from Georgetown Law Center. She worked for several years as a Congressional staff member. She also served briefly as an assistant secretary with the Mine Safety and Health Administration at the US Labor Department. Finally, she became a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). She retired in 2013.

After her retirement, Jan relocated to Amelia Island, Florida. There the former teacher was diagnosed with brain cancer, and five months later passed away on April 10, 2017. She was 71 years old. You can read her obituary at Anchorage Daily News.

The amazing story of Texas teacher and suffragist Annie Webb Blanton

Posted on by

Women in Texas

On a vacation to Texas a while back, I picked up this slender volume of biographical sketches, Women in Texas, by Anne Fears Crawford and Crystal Sasse Ragsdale.

When I bought the book, I was primarily intrigued by the chapter about Annie Webb Blanton, which the authors described as the foremost woman educator in Texas.

After her graduation from high school in LaGrange, Texas, Annie taught at a one-room county school in Pine Springs.  After the death of her father, Annie moved to Austin and taught in public elementary schools, and later at Austin High School.

While teaching, Annie attended classes at the University of Texas, Austin, earning a degree in English literature in 1899 and her Master’s degree in 1923. She earned a PhD from Cornell University in 1927.

By the time she finished her undergraduate degree, Annie had been teaching for several years in rural schools and schools in the Austin area. She went on to become a professor of English in Denton at the North Texas State Normal College, an institution that trained teachers, from 1901 to 1918. For the next 22 years, she taught at her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. She was only the third woman to hold full professor status at that university.

This amazing teacher, once president of the Texas State Teachers’ Association, was encouraged and financed by the State Suffrage Association in her 1918 bid to become the first woman elected to the state superintendent’s office. Texans gathered in droves across the Lone Star State to hear this remarkable teacher speak, and to witness the novelty of a woman campaigning in Texas’s male-dominated political arena. Apparently, the campaign was a dirty one, with opponents charging that Blanton was divorced (yikes!) and that she was an atheist (yeesh!).

You can read more about what happened in that 1918 election in the book Women in Texas, available on amazon.com.

Johan van Hulst: The Dutch teacher who saved 600 Jewish children from the Nazis

Posted on by
Johan van Hulst

Dutch educator Johan van Hulst (right) and some of the Jewish children he was determined to rescue (left).

In my book Chalkboard Champions, I asked the question, “What can a teacher do, what is a teacher expected to do, in highly charged periods of social change, political upheaval, or times of war?” This question can be answered with the inspirational story of Johan van Hulst. He was a Dutch teacher and principal who risked his life to rescue hundreds of Jewish children from the Nazis during World War II.

Johan was born on January 28, 1911, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His father was a furniture upholsterer, and his mother was a homemaker. While a young man, Johan studied psychology and pedagogy at the Vrije University in Amsterdam. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1929, and then two Master’s degrees, and a Ph.D. During his studies, Johan worked as a school teacher and university lecturer.

In 1942, Johan became the director of the Reformed Teacher Training College, a Protestant seminary in Amsterdam. The college was located across the street from the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former theater that had been set up to house Jewish children until they could be transported to Nazi concentration camps. In 1943, Johan worked with the Dutch Resistance and students from the University of Amsterdam to rescue as many of the Jewish children as they could. The children were smuggled across the street to the Training College, and then into a temporary safe house that shared a back yard garden with the school. Then, with the assistance of student teachers and local university students, the intrepid educator hoisted the children over the hedge separating the neighboring back yards of the safe house and the school. Later the children would be hidden in bags, sacks, or laundry baskets and spirited out of their hiding place into the care of rescue families. Because of these efforts, Johan and his co-conspirators saved the lives over 600 Jewish children.

After the war, Johan was elected to the Dutch Senate, where he served from 1956 to 1981. He was also elected to the European Parliament, where he served throughout the 1960s.

For his humanitarian work during the war, in 1973 Johan was recognized by Israel with the distinction of the Righteous Among the Nations, a title given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust. But despite Johan’s heroic achievements, the courageous educator often said he always felt ashamed that he did not do more.

This valiant chalkboard champion passed away last month on March 22, 2018. He was 107 years old. In 2016, the former Reformed Teacher Training College where Johan worked was transformed into the Dutch National Holocaust Museum.

You can read more about Johan van Hulst at Van Hulst Obituary or at his entry for Yad Vashem.

 

 

Margaret Herrera Chavez: New Mexico teacher and celebrated artist

Posted on by

There are many examples of talented classroom teachers who have distinguished themselves in other professions. Elementary school teacher and celebrated artist Margaret Herrera Chavez is a shining example of this.

Margaret was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1912, the daughter of ranchers. She was raised in Gascon, Mora County, New Mexico. As a young woman, Margaret worked as an elementary school teacher. For a time, she also worked for the Works Progress Administration.

Margaret Herrera ChavezIn addition to teaching, Margaret was a self-taught artist. She painted primarily in watercolors and oils, and experimented with printmaking, ceramics, and sculpture. She later completed formal training at Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. She also attended the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and the Instituto San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato, Mexico.

The natural environment of northern New Mexico where she was raised provided the greatest inspiration for Margaret’s art. Her pieces featured mostly broad landscapes painted in light colors. Margaret’s Nuevo Mexicana art pieces were so exceptional that she was able to exhibit her work at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she won several prizes. Currently, her pieces are part of the permanent collection of Highlands University, the New Mexico Museum of Art, and the Museum of International Folk Art.

In addition to her own successes, the former teacher was eager to promote the work of other emerging women artists. She was able to accomplish this as a member of the Hispanic Cultural Society, the New Mexico Education Association, and the National Education Association. She also served as the president of the Albuquerque branch of the National League of American Pen Women.

Margaret passed away in Alburquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, in 1992. To read more about this educator and artist, see Printmakers You Should Know.

Alan Lawrence Sitomer: Nationally recognized educator, public speaker, and novelist

Posted on by
Alan Lawrence Sitomer

Alan Lawrence Sitomer

You know, sometimes teachers make the best authors. One educator who proves this is true is high school English teacher Alan Lawrence Sitomer. Alan has earned a reputation nationally for his success in engaging reluctant readers and his aptitude as an engaging motivational speaker. He is also the celebrated author of children’s books, young adult fiction, and books about teaching pedagogy.

Born in 1967, Alan earned his Bachelor’s degree from University of Southern California, his teaching certificate through San Diego State University, and his Master’s degree from National University. He has taught English, creative writing, speech, debate, and AVID at Lynwood High School, an inner city school located in Lynwood, Los Angeles County, California. He has also worked as a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Alan’s published novels for kids include The Hoopster, Hip Hop High School, and Homeboyz. He has also authored Hip-Hop Poetry & the Classics, a text that is currently being used in classrooms throughout the United States to teach classic poetry through hip-hop. The approach is intended to engaged reluctant students in both poetry and academics. Other titles published by Alan are a teacher’s methodology book entitled Teaching Teens & Reaping Results: In a Wi-Fi, Hip-Hop, Where-Has-All-The-Sanityh-Gone World and The Alan Sitomer BookJam.

Recently, Alan has been working on a series of “BookJams.” These projects are designed to raise test scores by promoting his standards-based activities and lesson plans, hands-on learning projects, useful grading rubrics, differentiated assessments, and award-winning literature. See more about this at The Alan Sitomer BookJam.

This amazing teacher was named California Teacher of the Year by the California Board of Education in 2007. You can find his books on amazon.com and his website at www.alanlawrencesitomer.com.