Tag Archives: Elementary Teachers

Chalkboard Champion Josephine Heard: Teacher and Poet

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Many talented educators often become celebrated authors. Such is the case with Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard, an early 19th century schoolteacher who taught in Mayesville, South Carolina.

Josephine was born in Salisbury, North Carolina, on October 11, 1861, just after the outbreak of the Civil War. Her parents, Lafayette and Annie Henderson, were slaves. After the war was won and the Emancipation achieved, the Hendersons worked hard to ensure a quality education for their daughter. Josephine, who could read by the age of five, started school in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was later enrolled in historically black Scotia Seminary in nearby Concord. To earn her college degree, she attended college at Bethany Institute in upstate New York. Upon graduation, Josephine accepted her first teaching position at the elementary school located in Mayesville, South Carolina.

In 1882, when the young educator was 21, she married William Henry Heard from Georgia, also a teacher and a former slave. Later William became a prominent minister in the AME Church. The pair traveled the world together, including Liberia, as part of his work for the church.

In addition to being a dedicated teacher, Josephine was also a gifted poet. In 1890, she published her book Morning Glories, a collection of 72 poems. Her book is currently in the public domain, and can be accessed online through the Hathi Trust at Morning Glories. Although Josephine passed away in Philadelphia in 1921, her spirit lives on in her poetry. To learn more about this amazing teacher, click on this link: AAWW Biographies.

Sas Carey: International health educator and 2nd grade teacher

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One of the most amazing chalkboard champions I have heard of is Sas Carey, a former elementary school teacher with a degree in nursing who has worked as an international health education consultant.

Sas, born in Washington state in 1945, possesses an impressive educational background. She studied at Western Connecticut University and at Keen State College, where she earned her degree in elementary education in 1965. She then taught 2nd grade at Weybridge Elementary School in Vermont.

As interested in medicine as she was in education, Sas returned to school, earning a Bachelor’s in Science, Nursing, at the University of Vermont in 1983. She also earned her Master’s in Education in 1988.

Dedicated to improving the lives of others internationally, Sas has worked as a health education consultant for the Mongolian office of the United Nations Development Programme. She also founded the nonprofit Nomadicare, which provides health services to nomadic herders in Mongolia. Her book Reindeer Herders in My Heart: Stories of Healing Journeys in Mongolia, describes some of her experiences in Mongolia. Additionally, you can check out her fascinating videos on You Tube.

Sas has invested her considerable talent in helping youth. She founded the Alternatives for Teens program, where young people are given opportunities to discuss issues important to them. The program organizes group events that offer alternatives to drug and alcohol use. The organization earned an Exemplary Prevention Program Award from the US Department of Health and Human Services. In 1989, Sas authored the book Life Skills for Teens (currently out of print).

Sas Carey, now in her early 70’s, has accomplished so much in her life. She traces her drive to her Quaker upbringing. “As a Quaker,” she once said, “you listen for your calling for what you’re supposed to do. And it’s a changing kind of thing. You do a thing ’til you’re done with it. Then you do the next thing ’til you’re done with it.”

America’s Wild West tamed by frontier schoolmarms

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America’s Wild West was tamed in part due to the talented and dedicated women who served as frontier schoolteachers. The pioneering women who became teachers during this period of our nation’s history were indeed a special breed. At the turn of the century, females were expected to be dependent upon their husbands, fathers, or other male relatives. It was extremely unusual, and not at all encouraged, for a woman to support herself and function independently. Nevertheless, many intelligent and self-reliant women in search of personal freedom and adventure joined the Westward movement as schoolmarms.

The stereotype of a frontier schoolteacher was that of an unattractive spinster or a prim and proper young miss. In reality, she was often neither of those. Many of these ladies came from influential and affluent Eastern families. A few were filled with burning ambition, and others were seeking a better life, and perhaps some were seeking a husband of like mind. In general, though, they were dedicated practitioners of their profession. Despite primitive working conditions, uninviting classrooms, low wages, and overwork, these stalwart women introduced literacy, culture, and morality to the roughneck communities they served. A few of these teachers became missionaries, others became suffragettes, and one of them—Jeannette Rankin of Montana—even went on to become the first woman to be elected to the United States House of Representatives!

Our society owes these frontier schoolmarms a great debt. Read more about pioneering teachers in my book, Chalkboard Champions, available through amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. Click on the link to find out how to get a copy of the book. Enjoy!

Chalkboard Champions and Hurricane Harvey: Wading into Rising Waters

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As empathetic Americans look for ways to help fellow citizens forced to cope with the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Texas teachers are undoubtedly wondering what they can do to help ease the distress of their precious kids when they return to the classroom.

As usual when I hear news stories about storm damage, I am reminded of a book I read which tells the tale of a remarkable teacher who opened a school for New Orleans evacuees following Hurricane Katrina.

When surging flood waters from Hurricane Katrina forced thousands of families to flee from their homes, New Orleans residents had their minds more on survival than on whether their children would be missing school. But when a group of evacuee parents who landed in New Iberia, Louisiana, realized they would not be returning to their homes any time soon, they knew they had to find a strategy to help their children cope with their enforced and unexpected exile. They pooled their financial resources and hired a fellow refugee, teacher Paul Reynaud, to establish a one-room school for their children in an abandoned office building. The story furnishes valuable lessons for dealing with this latest example of nature’s fury.

The book is entitled Sugarcane Academy: How a New Orleans Teacher and His Storm-Struck Students Created a School to Remember.The author of this intriguing true story is journalist Michael Tisserand, and the volume was published in 2007 by Harcourt. You can find the book on amazon.com at the following link:

For other intriguing stories about remarkable teachers in America’s sometimes turbulent history, check out my book Chalkboard Champions. You will find it on the web site for Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Ten-year-old Dalton Sherman asks the question, “Do you believe in your students?”

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As educators all over the country ready for another school year, we are undoubtedly contemplating our role as a teacher, advocate, and role model for our kids. Here is a keynote speech from a young man just ten years old who asks the question, “Do you believe in your students?” You’ve got to see this!