Tag Archives: Language Arts Teachers

Rebecca Pawel: High school English teacher and acclaimed novelist

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I love to tell stories about amazing teachers, and one that certainly fills the bill is Rebecca Pawel, a New York City high school teacher who has published four widely-acclaimed mystery novels.

PawelRebecca Pawel  was born in 1977 in New York City and raised in the Upper West Side. She once revealed that her love affair with all things Iberian began in junior high school, when she studied flamenco and classical Spanish dance. While a teenager at Stuyvesant High School, Rebecca spent a summer abroad in Madrid. Once she graduated from high school, she enrolled at Columbia University, where she majored in Spanish Language and Literature. She then attended Teachers College to earn her teaching credentials.

Rebecca began her professional career as a teacher of English, Journalism, and Spanish at the High School for Enterprise, Business, and Technology in Brooklyn. She was employed there from 2000 to 2011. Between 2011 and 2013, she served as a college advisor for High School for Services and Learning at Erasmus Hall in Flatbush. In 2013, Rebecca returned to the Graduate School of Arts and Science at Columbia University, where she is currently working on a PhD in English and Comparative Literature.

Rebecca’s detective novels are set in a time period immediately after the Spanish Civil War. Her first book, Death of a Nationalist (2005), earned an Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Author. She followed this triumph with Law of Return (2004), The Watcher in the Pine (2005), and The Summer Snow (2006), which was named one of Publisher’s Weekly Best Mysteries.

“I’ve always told stories,” Rebecca once confessed. “I dictated stories to my parents before I knew how to write them down. When I was in third grade, my dad taught me to touch-type on a Brother electronic typewriter.” The rest is history.

Elementary teacher Geraldine Flaharty: She served in the Kansas House of Representatives

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thThere are many talented teachers in our country’s history who have also served their communities as politicians. One superb example of this is Geraldine Flaharty, an elementary reading teacher from Kansas who also serves in her state’s House of Representatives.

A native of Kansas, Geraldine was born March 4, 1936, in Parsons, and she currently lives in Wichita. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Wichita State University in 1961, and completed the requirements for her master’s in education from the same school in 1971.

Geraldine worked as an elementary teacher for Wichita Public Schools from 1956 to 1957 and as a reading teacher at Oaklawn Elementary School in the Derby Public School District from 1966 until she retired after teaching after thirty-six years.

This talented educator was elected as a Democrat to the Kansas State House of Representatives for District 98, serving Sedgwick County, Kansas. She served there from 1995 to 2013. During her stint as a politician, Geraldine served on the committees for Education; Health and Human Services; Aging and Long-Term Care; Economic Development and Tourism; and the Joint Committee on Pensions, Investments, and Benefits. One of her legislative acts was to support a bill that would restore professional status to retired teachers who return to work. “Representative Flaharty has been a tireless advocate for the people of Wichita,” House Minority Leader Paul Davis once said. “She has been a champion for job creation, good public schools, and fair taxation.”

Throughout her long career, Geraldine has donated her talents to a number of community organizations, including the American Association of University Women, the International Reading Association, the Kansas National Education Association, the Sedgwick County Zoo, and the Wichita Center for the Arts. Geraldine Flaharty: a true Chalkboard Champion.

John Taylor Gatto: English Teacher and Renaissance Man

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Gatto11024x576Many talented educators are also published authors. This is the case with John Taylor Gatto, a veteran English teacher with thirty years of experience in the classroom who is also an accomplished author of highly-regarded books about the field of education.

John was born December 15, 1935, in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, a river town thirty-five miles southeast of Pittsburgh. As a young boy, John attended publish schools in Swissvale, Monongahela, and Uniontown, and the private Catholic boarding school in Latrobe, all towns located in western Pennsylvania.

After graduation from high school, John enrolled at Cornell University, and also completed undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia. He also served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Following his army service, John did graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell.

In addition to his career as an educator, John has a varied and unique employment history. After college, he worked as a scriptwriter in the film industry. He was also employed for a time as an advertising writer, a taxi driver, a jewelry designer, an ASCAP songwriter, and a hot dog vendor before becoming a schoolteacher. During his years as a schoolteacher, John also entered the caviar trade, conducted an antique business, and operated a rare book search service. In addition, he worked as a documentary record producer, producing films that presented the dramatized story of H.P. Lovecraft, and another that presented the speeches of Richard M. Nixon and Spiro Agnew. One of his productions won several awards for cover design and content.

Following his retirement, he authored several seminal books on modern education which offered a frank critique of current instructional practices. His best known books are “Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” and “The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling.”

John was named Teacher of the Year in New York City in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and the Teacher of the Year for New York State in 1991. 

Educators Are Well Represented by Shanna Peeples, the 2015 National Teacher of the Year

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412553_img650x420_img650x420_cropOne of the most inspirational chalkboard champions I have learned about recently is Shanna Peeples, a high school English teacher from Amarillo, Texas. Shanna was honored this Wednesday by President Obama as the 2015 National Teacher of the Year.

Shanna, who teaches at Palo Duro High School, is the first educator from the state of Texas to earn the national honor since 1957. The prestigious award was given to her in recognition for her dedication and service to immigrant students, primarily refugees from East Africa, many of whom came to Texas after spending time in Kakuma, a camp established in Kenya for displaced persons. Available jobs in feedlots and slaughterhouses attracted these refugee families to Amarillo.

Palo Duro Principal Sandy Whitlow says Shanna is a lifelong learner who inspires her students and colleagues. “Shanna can tailor instruction to the needs of her students, whether she is working with refugees who have suffered traumatic events in their lives, or AP students who crave challenging curriculum, or at-risk students who are attending school in the evenings to recover lost credits,” describes Whitlow. “The bottom line is that her students know she truly cares about them, and she will invest every ounce of energy in helping them attain their goals.”

Shanna teaches AP English and English III, and she serves as the English department chair. She also serves as an instructional coach for other teachers. Not only does Shanna teach her regular day classes, but she also instructs an evening credit recovery program for pregnant teens and young people just released from juvenile detention. Shanna says the most important thing she does as an educator is to make every one of her students feel valued. “That’s what we all need,” she says. “We need kindness. We need understanding, and we need a sense of belonging. Kindness is probably my first and best lesson.”

After President Obama presented the crystal apple award to the Lone Star educator, he recognized fifty-four other deserving chalkboard champions from around the country. “I think what it takes to make a great teacher is somebody who just loves what they do, who loves kids and who loves to bring out the potential in every kid,” Shanna expressed at the Rose Garden ceremony.

She represents all of us in the profession very well indeed.

Chalkboard Champion Albert Cullum: He Introduced an Element of Play Into the Curriculum

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teacher_recentOftentimes a gifted educator serves as an inspiration not only for his students, but for other teachers as well. Such is certainly the case for chalkboard champion Albert Cullum.

Albert Cullum was born in November of 1921. His career as an educator began in the 1940’s, after a failed attempt at a career as a Broadway actor. He accepted a teaching position at St. Luke’s School in Greenwich village in New York City, but quickly realized this would be no easy gig. “I knew after the first month [at the job that] something was missing,” he once confessed. “I realized, ‘I’m not having fun. If I’m not having fun, no one in the room is having fun’…. I realized there should be more play during the day… more learning that is playful.” After that, the neophyte educator completely changed his style of teaching. Instead of the prevailing Dick and Jane style, he opted to introduce his children to classic literature such as Shakespeare and Greek drama.

After St. Luke’s, Albert taught at the Midland School in Rye, New York, a suburb of New York City, from 1956 to 1966. As a trailblazer in American education, Albert ignited the imagination of countless young students. Through his passionate use of poetry and drama, he helped build students’ self-confidence and inspired them to new heights of originality and joy. It was during this time that he and his close friend Robert Downey, Sr., filmed the footage seen in the movie A Touch of Greatness, an Emmy-nominated documentary about Albert’s work in the classroom.

Eventually Albert became a professor of education at Boston University and Stonehill College, a liberal arts college in Massachusetts. At Stonehill, he trained aspiring teachers for more than thirty years. In addition to his teaching, Albert worked with the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services using poetry and drama as a therapeutic tool for incarcerated male and female adolescents. He also authored numerous books on education, including The Geranium On The Windowsill Just Died But Teacher You Went Right On (Harlin Quist Books: 2000), which sold over half a million copies, and Push Back the Desks (MacMilan: 1967), considered a classic in the field of education.

After teaching his final class for the semester in May, 2003, Albert’s health began to fail. The innovative and prolific educator passed away on July 13, 2003.”Teachers can be the bearers of gifts,” Albert once said. “Not only do we have the privilege of introducing great literature to young imaginative minds, but we also have the priceless opportunity of giving each child the gift of believing in him or herself.”