How wonderful it is when one of our fellow educators becomes a spokesperson in Washington for our profession. One such educator is Bonnie Bracey Sutton, an elementary school teacher and technology consultant now based in Washington, D.C.

Bonnie is a former teacher at the Ashlawn Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia, and a teacher-in-residence at the Arlington Career Center, where she teaches all subjects. She is a graduate researcher at George Mason University’s Telecommunications Department, where she evaluates new programs and technologies. She is also a member of the George Lucas Educational Foundation advisory board.

Bonnie was also named a Christa McAuliffe Educator for the National Foundation of Education, and she is a member of the Challenger Center faculty. She is a Young Astronaut teacher and, in 1990, was named a Challenger Fellow. That year she received the President’s Award in Teaching in science. Bonnie has also attended the Hubbell Space Science Institute and holds honors in a variety of fields in educational fields, including technology, aerospace, physics, geography, and multicultural education. She has also earned a graduate degree from Marymount University SED program.

Bonnie was one of the first teachers to promote the role of the internet in classroom instruction.  She was the only teacher selected by the Clinton administration to serve on the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIIAC). Bonnie also served as the lead educator on President Clinton’s 21st Century Teacher Initiative.

Currently, this remarkable teacher works as an international educational consultant. In this capacity, she conducts outreach activities for the George Lucas Education Foundation and other groups. She is also an active member of the Digital Divide Network and does preventative work on cyber-bullying.

Bonnie Bracey Sutton: Truly a chalkboard champion!

In times of social and political turbulence, it is often the teachers who help with transition. Such is the case for Chloe Merrick Reed, a teacher from the Civil War period who opened a school for newly emancipated slaves.

Chloe was born in Syracuse, New York, on April 18, 1832. She became a teacher in Syracuse public schools, where she worked from 1854 to 1856. In 1863, while the Civil War was still raging, this intrepid teacher traveled to Fernandina, Florida, where she opened a school on Amelia Island to educate fifty-five of the children of slaves who had been liberated by the Union Army. Later she opened a home for orphans there. She was one of the first teachers to work with the Freedmen’s Bureau, a federal agency that was established to protect and assist newly-emancipated African Americans. Chloe’s work on Amelia Island is well documented. She is the only educator cited by name in Florida’s monthly education reports to the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.

On August 10, 1869, Chloe married Harrison M. Reed, who served as the governor of Florida from 1868 to 1873. Reed was the ninth governor of the state. While First Lady of Florida, Chloe campaigned for legislation that would improve education, provide aid to the poor, and address other pressing social issues. The couple had one child, a boy they named Harrison Merrick Reed.

Chloe Merrick Reed passed away on August, 5, 1897. In 2000, this remarkable teacher’s name was added to the list of “Great Floridians,” a program which recognizes men and women who served their state through philanthropy, public service, or personal or professional service, and who have enhanced the lives of Florida’s citizens.

Many exceptional teachers use their instructional expertise to work with students outside of the classroom. Willa Brown, the first African American woman licensed to fly in the United States, is an excellent example of this.

Willa was born January 22, 1906, in Glasgow, Kentucky. She earned her degree in education from Indiana State Teachers College in 1927. She also completed the requirements for an MBA from Northwestern University in 1937. Following her college graduation, Willa was employed as a high school teacher at Roosevelt High School in Gary, Indiana, and later as a social worker in Chicago.

Willa was always seeking challenges and adventures in her life, especially if they could be found outside the limited career fields normally open to African Americans at that time. She decided to learn to fly, studying with Cornelius R. Coffey, a certified flight instructor and expert aviation mechanic at a racially segregated airport in Chicago. Willa earned her private pilot’s license in 1938. Later, Willa and Cornelius married and founded the Coffey School of Aeronautics at Harlem Airport in Chicago, where together they trained black pilots and aviation mechanics. Willa conducted the classroom instruction and Cornelius conducted the in-flight practice.

In 1939, Willa, Cornelius, and their friend Enoch P. Waters founded the National Airmen’s Association of America. Their goal was to secure admission for black aviation cadets into the US military. As the organization’s national secretary and the president of the Chicago branch, Willa became an activist for racial equality. She persistently lobbied the US Government for integration of black pilots into the segregated Army Air Corps and the federal Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP), a system established by the Civil Aeronautics Authority just before the outbreak of World War II. The CPTP’s purpose was to provide a pool of civilian pilots for use during national emergencies. Willa was given the rank of an officer in this first integrated unit. In 1948, when Congress finally voted to allow separate-but-equal participation of blacks in civilian flight training programs, the Coffey School of Aeronautics was one of a select few private aviation schools selected for participation. Later, her flight school was selected by the US Army to provide black trainees for the Air Corps pilot training program at the Tuskegee Institute. Willa was instrumental in training more than 200 students who went on to become  Tuskegee pilots. Eventually, Willa Brown became the coordinator of war-training service for the Civil Aeronautics Authority and a member of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Women’s Advisory Board. She was the first black female officer in the Civil Air Patrol and the first black woman to hold a commercial pilot’s license in the United States.

This remarkable educator and pioneer aviatrix passed away on July 18, 1992. In 2010, Willa was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award by the Indiana State University Alumni Association. She was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in her native Kentucky in 2003. To find out more about this remarkable chalkboard champion, you can read a chapter about her in my next book, tentatively titled Chalkboard Heroes, which is scheduled for publication later this year.