Tag Archives: Language Arts Teachers

Mary Catherine Swanson: The innovative teacher who created the AVID program

Posted on by
Mary Catherine Swanson

Mary Catherine Swanson, original developer of the AVID program.

Back in 1980, Clairemont High School in San Diego, California, suddenly faced a court-ordered integration order. Teachers at the predominantly white, suburban, middle-class school knew that their incoming minority students would need extensive remediation. As Clairemont’s staff scrambled for ways to meet the needs of these students, one innovative staff member came up over with a groundbreaking idea. That staff member was English teacher Mary Catherine Swanson.

Mary Catherine believed strongly that with appropriate academic tools and support, minority and other under-represented students could succeed in a rigorous academic atmosphere just as well as their Clairemont classmates. To meet their needs, she developed an innovative instructional program called Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID). The program trained students in strategies for note-taking and test-taking, offered peer mentoring and tutoring, and sponsored cultural field trips.

Mary Catherine’s efforts produced astonishing results. Since the program’s inception, over 400,000 students have participated in the training. The program is so successful that today over 5,000 high schools in 45 states and 16 countries around the world have implemented it. Statistics show that of those students enrolled in AVID, 95% go on to enroll in a four-year college, and 85% of them graduate. To learn more about the AVID program, go to www.avid.org.

The overwhelming success of Mary Catherine’s work has earned her many honors. Among them are an A+ Award for Reaching the Goals of America 2000 from the US Department of Education; the EXCEL Award for Excellence in Teaching; and the Salute to Excellence from the American Association for Higher Education. She has also been recognized with the UC San Diego Remarkable Leader in Education Award and the Distinguished Achievement Award by the UC Davis Cal Aggie Alumni Association. She has also been recognized with honorary doctorates from UC San Diego and the University of LaVerne.

Mary Catherine Swanson: truly a chalkboard champion.

Mark Zubro: The Chicago teacher who became a best-selling author

Posted on by
Mark Zubro

Mark Zubro

There are many examples of fine educators who have become successful authors. One of these is Mark Richard Zubro, a junior high school English teacher from Illinois who has earned a name as a celebrated author of bestselling mysteries.

Mark was born in Racine, Wisconsin, on August 9, 1948. When he was 13, his family moved to California, where the young boy was enrolled in Notre Dame High School, a private Catholic high school located in Riverside. He graduated from Notre Dame in 1966. Mark then enrolled in St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in English in 1970. Six years later, he earned his Master’s degree in Urban Teacher Education from Governors State University in University Park, Illinois. Mark was a teacher of English at Summit Hill Junior High in Frankfort Square, Illinois, in a career that spanned 34 years. He retired in 2006.

Mark’s novels have settings in the Chicago area of Illinois. His work has been widely praised as fast-paced, featuring engaging plots and well-rounded, personable characters. Typically treating gay themes, Mark’s longest running series features a high school teacher, Tom Mason, and Tom’s boyfriend, a professional baseball player named Scott Carpenter. The other series Mark is well known for is the Paul Turner mysteries, which are about a police detective from Chicago.

For his novel A Simple Suburban Murder, Mark earned a Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Men’s Mystery. The Lambda Literary Awards recognize the best books published with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender themes.

You can read more about this talented educator and gifted author in this interview published by the Windy City Times.

 

Duke Southard: Teacher, coach, and award-winning author

Posted on by

I often meet talented educators who have also become successful authors. This is certainly the case with Duke Southard, an English teacher and coach from New Hampshire who is also an award-winning author.

Duke’s credentials are impressive. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Villanova University, a private research university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned his Master’s degree from Rowan University, located in Glassboro, New Jersey. In addition, Duke completed the requirements for a Certificate of Advanced Study in Media Technology from Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts.

Duke’s career as an educator began in 1962, when he accepted his first position as an English teacher and coach at Burlington City High School in Burlington, New Jersey. “The one important lesson I learned from a principal early on was to vary assignments at least every five years so that boredom and complacency did not set in,” recollects Duke. “Don’t have one great year of teaching, then use the same plans and approaches for the next thirty years trying to duplicate it.”

In addition to teaching, Duke coached football and track in New Jersey for eight years before moving to Kingswood Regional High School in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. He then accepted a position as a coach and Library/Media Director for the Governor Wentworth School District. In 1988, he relocated to Conway in New Hampshire to become the Library Media Specialist in the K-12 Conway School District.

After a 36-year career, Duke retired in 1998. “I loved my career in teaching and coaching,” says Duke. “While it had a few difficult times, such as teaching in a predominantly black city high school in 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated, I always felt indebted to my students, who supplied so much joy in my life.” For his outstanding contributions as a media professional and school librarian, Duke has been honored with an “EDie”, the New Hampshire Excellence in Education Award.

Since his retirement, Duke has published four novels and two nonfiction books. All of his novels have been selected as finalists for prestigious book awards, including the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards in 2013, 2014, and 2015. His short works have won first place and finalist awards in many competitions, including the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards and the Society of Southwestern Authors Writing Contests. His personal essay, “The Fallacy of Closure,” garnered first place in the 2016 Writer’s Digest Writing Competition

Duke currently lives in Green Valley, Arizona, where he is often engaged as a public speaker for schools, libraries, and community groups. You can view Duke’s works on amazon.com or visit his website at www.dukesouthard.com.

Linda L. Baker of Maine: Educator and Legislator

Posted on by

Talented educators often make equally talented politicians. This can certainly be said of Linda L. Baker, a high school English teacher who has also served in the State Senate for her home state of Maine.

Linda was born in 1948.  She graduated from the University of Southern Maine. In 2001, she earned her National Board Teacher Certification, a prestigious credential.

Her career as an educator has spanned more than three decades. Linda taught in public schools in Bath, Maine, from 1980 to 1985, and at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham, Maine, from 1985 to 2011. She taught English, creative writing, and history, and for five years she served as the Academic Coordinator at Mt. Ararat. In addition, she spent ten years working for Merrymeeting Adult Education. Today, she teaches an adult education course through the University College at Bath and Brunswick.

Linda got her feet wet in local politics having spent three years as a selectwoman on the Topsham Town Council, and eight years on the Topsham Finance Committee. In 2014, she was elected on the Republican ticket to represent District 23 in the Maine State Senate, a position she held for two years. While there, Linda served as the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources and a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Insurance and Financial Services. During her tenure in the state senate, Linda sponsored a bill that would dock the pay of legislators that had a history of absenteeism. She also initiated legislation that would require school administrators to complete fifty hours of direct student instruction to renew their credential. And she was honored by Maine’s League of Conservation Voters for co-sponsoring the Kids Safe Products Act, a bipartisan bill which dealt with toxic chemicals.

In 2002, this chalkboard champion was honored with the World of Children Award given by the Girl Scouts of America. She still lives in Topsham, Main.

Brittney Marie Miller: The Middle School English Teacher Serves in the Nevada State Legislature

Posted on by

 

Many gifted classroom teachers go on to become successful politicians. One of these is Brittney Marie Miller, a middle school English teacher who now serves in the Nevada State Assembly.

Brittney was born in 1974 in Detroit, Michigan. Her father, a former Marine who served in Viet Nam, was a police sergeant in Detroit. Her mother, a former civilian employee for the US Army Tank Arsenal, was a registered nurse.

Brittney earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Saginaw Valley State University located in University Center, Michigan. She has two master’s degrees: one in public administration from Oakland University located in the cities of Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills, Michigan, and the other in teaching from Sierra Nevada College, Incline Village, Nevada.

For the past six years, Brittney has taught Language Arts at Canarelli Middle School in the Clark County School District in Nevada. “After years developing programs in public schools, work force development, and prisoner re-entry, I knew that becoming a teacher was one more way I could serve,” Brittney once said. “Indeed, I reduced my salary by over a third when I became a teacher, but that’s how passionate and devoted I am to service. I believe strongly in education. To build a future, we must invest in our children first,” she added.

In 2017, Brittney was elected to represent District 5 in the Nevada State Assembly, where she still serves. She succeeded Republican Assemblyman Erv Nelson who resigned from his post to run for the state Senate. As a representative, Brittney is a member of four committees: Education; Corrections, Parole, and Probation; Health and Human Services; and Judiciary.

To learn more about this accomplished chalkboard champion, check out this interview by Nevada Public Radio or her profile at Project Vote Smart.