Laura Bush: Spoken From the Heart

Anyone fascinated by presidential history, libraries, and teachers, whether Republican or Democrat, is bound to be interested in the recent opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Museum and Library last week in Dallas, Texas. It is times like this when I like to  remember that former First Lady Laura Bush was once a teacher and a librarian.

Laura Bush gives readers a wealth of detail about her experiences in her Texas classrooms, the libraries where she worked, and the annual National Book Festival she inaugurated in her 2011 autobiography, Spoken from the Heart. The book covers the other details of her life you would expect to find in an autobiography: her childhood and education, how she met and married George Bush, her difficulty conceiving and the eventual birth of her twins, her husband's gubernatorial and presidential elections, and her role as First Lady.

If you want to get to know Laura Bush better, be sure to read this book. You can find Spoken from the Heart on amazon.com.

Annie Webb Blanton: The Foremost Woman Educator in Texas

I picked up this volume of biographical sketches, Women in Texas by Anne Fears Crawford and Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, when I was vacationing in Texas last summer. When I bought the book, I was primarily intrigued by the chapter about Annie Webb Blanton, which the authors described as the foremost women educator in Texas. This amazing teacher, 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. The campaign was a dirty one, with opponents charging that Blanton was divorced (yikes!) and that she was an atheist. You don't have to go to Texas to find this book, which reveals the engrossing results of that 1918 election. You can purchase Women in Texas on amazon.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

Whenever I read the gripping accounts of oppressed women in other countries such as the one presented by Azar Nafisi in Reading Lolita in Tehran, I become acutely aware of how lucky I am to have been born into liberty here in the United States. It never ceases to amaze me that the simple pass-time of reading a book and talking about it with others is considered a subversive activity in some countries. So many women worldwide still struggle to attain the freedoms that many of the young girls in our classrooms take for granted.

In Reading Lolita in Tehran, Iranian author and professor Azar Nafisi describes her experiences as an educator at the University of Tehran during the fundamentalist revolution of 1978. When she refused to submit to an order by the male-dominated administration to wear a veil, which she considered a symbol of oppression, she was expelled from the faculty. Nafisi continued to instruct, however, by leading an underground book club attended by like-minded Iranian women. The group met in Nafisi's home every Thursday morning to study such forbidden Western classics as Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

Nafisi's memoir is a transfixing example of resilience in the face of adversity. You can easily find Reading Lolita in Tehran on amazon.

Christa McAuliffe: First Teacher in Space

Without a doubt, one of the saddest days of my teaching career was the day our nation lost the first educator to go into space, New Hampshire history teacher Christa McAuliffe. Fairly new to the profession, I was so proud that a fellow teacher had been selected as the first civilian in space, and a little star-struck by the professionalism, intelligence, and infectious enthusiasm of the chosen candidate, selected from among 11,000 applicants.

 

While on her mission, Christa planned to write a journal of her experiences as an astronaut from the perspective that even an ordinary citizen can take center stage in the making of history. Additionally, she was scheduled to perform lessons and experiments aboard the space shuttle which would be viewed by students in classrooms all over America.

 

Tragically, Christa was one of seven astronauts killed when the space shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, just 73 seconds after lift-off. The journal she never got to finish was replaced by A Journal for Christa: Christa McAuliffe, Teacher in Space, written by Grace George Corrigan, Christa's grief-stricken mother. The book is a tender tribute to an extraordinary teacher.

 A Journal for Christa can be ordered form amazon. I have also included a chapter about Christa McAuliffe in the book I am currently writing, tentatively entitled Chalkboard Heroes.

Forbidden Schoolhouse: The True Story of Abolitionist Teacher Prudence Crandall

In 1831 well-known and highly-respected schoolteacher Prudence Crandall opened a boarding school for young ladies in Canterbury, Connecticut. By the end of the first year, she had earned the praise of parents, community members, and students throughout New England. Then one day an African American student named Sarah Harris asked to be admitted to the academy. Sarah said she wanted to learn how to be a teacher so she could open her own school for black students. Prudence knew admitting an African American student would generate some resistance from her neighbors, but after some soul-searching she decided her conscience would not allow her to refuse the request. Prudence had severely under-estimated the resistance. Figuring the complaint was that she was operating an integrated school, the teacher closed her academy for white girls and re-opened as an academy for "misses of color." That just made the situation worse, causing ripples all the up to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulting in Prudence's brief incarceration in the local jail. Read the gripping account of this valiant teacher in the book, The Forbidden Schoolhouse: The True and Dramatic Story of Prudence Crandall and Her Students by Suzanne Jurmain, available on amazon. I have also included a chapter about this heroic teacher in the book I am currently writing, tentatively entitled Chalkboard Heroes.

Radical Equations: The Story Past and Present of Math Teacher Robert Parris Moses

New York City math teacher Robert Parris Moses was a legendary figure during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, having orchestrated the black voter-registration efforts and the Freedom Schools made famous during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. This heroic educator's revolutionary work, which was not without risk to life and limb, transformed the political power structure of entire communities. Now, nearly forty years later, Moses is advocating for yet another transformational change: the Algebra Project. Moses asserts that a deficiency in math literacy in poor neighborhoods puts impoverished children at an economic disadvantage when it comes to being able to compete successfully for jobs in the 21st century, and that this disenfranchisement is as debilitating as lack of personal liberties was prior to the Civil Rights Movement. His solution is to organize people, community by community, school by school, to overcome the achievement gap and give impoverished children the tools they need to claim their share of economic enfranchisement. Moses's book, Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project written with fellow Civil Rights worker Charles E. Cobb, Jr., can be found easily and reasonably-priced on amazon. A fascinating read for anyone who is interested in Moses's story, either past or present. A chapter about this remarkable teacher will also be included in the book I am currently working on, tentatively titled Chalkboard Heroes.

In honor of Shakespeare's birthday I thought I would share a really great resource for teaching the bard's timeless classic Romeo and Juliet. The teacher-created volume, Shakespeare Set Free, was published by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, the country's leading authority on all things Shakespeare. This handy resource book is jam-packed with practical, specific activities that even the most recalcitrant student can not resist. There are two guiding principles behind these experiential activities: the first is that the best way to learn Shakespeare is by doing Shakespeare, and the second is that everyone at all ages and ability levels can access, appreciate, and have fun with Shakespeare. Also included in this particular volume, the first of three, are activities for Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream. You can easily and affordably find  Shakespeare Set Free at amazon.

School Counselors are Chalkboard Champions, Too

This week, while I was absorbed in volunteer work for my school's Scholarship Committee, I was reminded once again of how amazing our school counselors are. Day in and day out, these dedicated professionals labor tirelessly to help ensure the academic success, personal achievement, and emotional well-being of our kids. Their commitment to the success of each student starts with their very first interaction with students through their eighth grade outreach programs, and continues with assisting the freshmen with their graduation requirements plans, one-on-one meetings with English-language learners, counseling students who are failing classes, helping students who are lacking credits with strategies for credit recovery, and making sure seniors are on track to graduate. In between all this heavy-duty work, counselors help students find scholarships to fund their post-graduation education programs, write letters of recommendation, judge senior projects, and attend IEP meetings. And as if all that wasn't enough, they also organize small group counseling sessions to help students deal with such issues as bullying, smoking-cessation, teen parenting, or bereavement. When the inevitable quarrels between students arise, they serve as competent conflict resolution facilitators, and they have even been known to mediate the occasional dispute between a student and a teacher. And then, just to top it all off, if---God forbid---some tragedy such as a fatal traffic accident or a suicide strikes, school counselors quickly mobilize into a highly-effective crisis management team. Phenomenal, aren't they? Chalkboard champions, in the truest sense of the word.

Dolores Huerta: Teacher, Farm Labor Leader, Civil Rights Advocate

Like many people who have heard of farm labor leader and civil rights advocate Cesar Chavez, I have also heard of his right-hand woman, Dolores Huerta, elected vice president of the United Farm Workers Union. But did you know she was also a teacher? Raised in Stockton, California, Huerta graduated in 1955 with an AA and her teaching credentials from the College of the Pacific. After graduation, she accepted a teaching position in a rural Stockton elementary school. She had been teaching for only a short time when she realized she wanted to devote her vast energy to migrant farm workers and their families. "I couldn't stand seeing farm worker children come to class hungry and in need of shoes," she once explained. "I thought I could do more by organizing their parents than by trying to teach their hungry children." After one year, she resigned from her teaching position, determined to launch a campaign that would fight the numerous economic injustices faced by migrant agricultural workers. Joining forces with the legendary labor leader Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta organized a large-scale strike against the commercial grape growers of the San Joaquin Valley, an effort which raised national awareness of the abysmal treatment of America's agricultural workers, and she negotiated contracts which led to their improved working conditions. The rest, as they say, is history.

Although there are several fairly good juvenile biographies of this extraordinary woman, there is no definitive adult biography about her. The closest thing to it is A Dolores Huerta Reader edited by Mario T. Garcia. This book includes an informative biographical introduction by the editor, articles and book excerpts written about her, her own writings and transcripts of her speeches, and a recent interview with Mario Garcia. You can find A Dolores Huerta Reader on amazon. I have also included a chapter about this remarkable teacher in the book I am currently writing, tentatively entitled Chalkboard Heroes.

Newtown, Connecticut, Reminds Us to Honor Our Chalkboard Heroes

So many of us have had Newtown, Connecticut, on our minds these past few months, as we hold our own children more closely, guard our students more carefully, and evaluate our lawmakers' choices more intensely. This newest example of senseless loss of life saddens us all deeply. Of course, every instance of school room violence reminds us of Columbine High School, and the valiant teacher, Dave Sanders, who was killed there protecting his students from two well-armed student assassins. Sanders, a business teacher and girls basketball coach with 25 years of tenure, clearly went beyond the call of duty to ensure the safe evacuation of over 200 Columbine students and colleagues, and lamentably he paid the ultimate price. You can read Sanders's heroic life story in a slender volume entitled Dave Sanders: Columbine Teacher, Coach, Hero by Marilyn Saltzman and Linda Lou Sanders. The book can be found on amazon at Dave Sanders, but is very costly, and alas the book is not easily available at your local library. If you're highly motivated, however, you will pay the asking price to read the book. Or you could wait to read the chapter about this lionhearted teacher in the book I am currently writing, tentatively entitled Chalkboard Heroes.

"Schoolmarms with a Cause" Describes Gutsy Teachers of the Wild West

I found this little softcover book, Daughters of the West by Anne Seagraves, in a little touristy mercantile in Prescott, Arizona. I was immediately intrigued by the chapter titles: "Horse Trading Ladies & Cattle Queens," "Those Wells Fargo Women," "Petticoat Prisoners." But when I saw the chapter entitled "Schoolmarms with a Cause," I simply couldn't pass it up. I truly enjoyed reading the captivating stories about these turn-of-the-century school teachers conquering the Wild West in their own gutsy ways. Included are numerous historical black and white photos. This slender volume is well worth taking a look at. You can find Daughters of the West and other books by Anne Seagraves at amazon.com.

Warriors Don't Cry: What Happened When the Little Rock Nine Integrated Central High School

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education which declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Three years later, the schools of Little Rock, Arkansas, were still segregated. A plan for gradual integration generated an intensely hostile response from Little Rock's staunch segregationists. Nevertheless, nine courageous African American students were selected to challenge the status quo and integrate the city's Central High School.  Clinging stubbornly to Jim Crow tradition, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to block the entrance of the nine black students into the school, and, in response, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and charged the troops with protecting the lives of the nine and enforcing the Supreme Court's ruling. Every school day that year, the Little Rock Nine braved angry mobs spewing hostilities, racial epithets, and threats to their lives simply for seeking the right to enter their school. This book, Warriors Don't Cry: The Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High, tells the story of Melba Pattilllo Beals, one of those valiant nine students. When you read this compelling account, you wonder how any kid could have that much fortitude. This book is a great read for teachers, students, and history buffs. You can acquire Warriors Don't Cry from amazon.

Neutralize Negative Teacher Stories; Substitute Stories about Chalkboard Champions!

Is this an experience you have had? You meet someone new, perhaps at a party or at the local watering hole, they find out you are a teacher, and they promptly launch into a half-hour diatribe of the worst teacher they ever had in their life. The teacher made them read aloud in class, the teacher lost their homework and made them do the assignment over, the teacher gave them an F and they couldn't graduate with their class. You politely listen to yet another tale of woe, mentally counting how many such depressing stories you have listened to throughout your career, while silently promising to yourself that you will never tell another person on this planet that you are an educator.

Here is a strategy I have developed to neutralize the demoralizing effects of such an encounter. First, I listen to everything the person has to say, making the appropriate sympathetic noises and facial expressions. Then, at the conclusion of their story, I ask them this question: "And who was the best teacher you ever had?" You can almost see the Rolodex-flip through their file of schoolhouse memories until they finally find at least one teacher they can speak about positively. Using this strategy shifts the feeling tone of the conversation, it neutralizes the negativity, and anyway it's only fair that if through social convention you're forced to listen to a troubling story, you should also get the opportunity to enjoy an uplifting one.

 

In my long career I have endured many a doleful worst-teacher story, and that is one reason why I wanted to write a book about great teachers. I love to tell stories about remarkable educators. There are so many fascinating and inspiring stories to tell! To read about twelve of the greatest and most moving teacher stories I have personally discovered, look on amazon.com for my book,  Chalkboard Champions. 

Tuesdays with Morrie: A Story About a Man and His College Professor

Tuesdays with Morrie is the true story of sports writer Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz, Albom's favorite professor from his college days at Brandeis University. During Albom's undergraduate years, he and Schwartz formed a warm friendship that went beyond the typical student-teacher relationship. After graduation, although Albom vowed to keep in touch with his favorite professor, he failed to do so.

Years later, while flipping channels on the television one evening, Albom stumbled across the introduction to Nightline and heard the name Morrie Schwartz. His long-forgotten professor was the subject of an interview, during which Albom learned that his former mentor was dying of ALA, Lou Gehrig's disease. Albom decided to get in touch with his former professor.

Albom began to visit Schwartz regularly, and Tuesdays with Morrie is a journal of the conversations the two men shared until Schwartz passed away 14 weeks later. The book, far from being morbid, details the lessons Schwartz provides in his last class:  How to die with dignity and without fear. Great stuff.

You can find this inspirational book at amazon at the following link: Tuesdays with Morrie.

Sports in Literature, Edited by Bruce Emra

A really great book for physical education teachers, coaches, and avid sports enthusiasts is a volume entitled Sports in Literature: Experiencing Literature Through Stories, Poems, and Nonfiction About Sports, edited by Bruce Emra. This collection of stories, essays, poems, and biograhical sketches presents athletic heroes and villains, the famous and the obscure, and their triumphs and defeats, as seen through the eyes of contemporary and classic writers. Each selection included in the volume explores both the dramatic and the personal aspects of sports, and the stories reveal sports as a metaphor for the human experience. Terrific as a read for yourself, and equally great to offer to students as leisure reading. Each selection is followed by several comprehension questions and a thought-provoking essay assignment, which makes this book perfect for classroom assignments, make-up work for absences, bad-weather work, or extra credit opportunities. This wonderful book can be ordered from amazon at this link: Sports in Literature.

Tundra Teacher: an Alaskan Teacher and Basketball Coach Tells His Story

Anyone intrigued by the wilderness of Alaska and the challenges teachers face there would find Tundra Teacher: A Memoir by John Foley a fascinating read. In the remote Eskimo village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, Foley becomes immersed in the local Yup'ik culture, helping to haul in a whale, keeping an eye out for polar bears on his way to school, and discovering how important it is to earn respect on the basketball court. Later, Foley transfers to the Athabascan Indian village of Tetlin on the Alaska Highway near the U.S. border with Canada, where he teaches and coaches basketball. The author writes candidly but with wry, mellow humor about village life, students, teachers, women, and relationships. You can find Tundra Teacher on amazon.com.

They'll Cut Off Your Project: A Mingo County Chronicle

When President Lyndon B. Johnson launched his war on poverty in the 1960's, Huey Perry, a young local history teacher, was selected to be the director of the program in Mingo County in southern West Virginia.  Mingo County was known for its violent labor movements, corrupt government, and the infamous Hatfield-McCoy rivalry. Huey encouraged his poverty-stricken neighbors to challenge these conditions by promoting self-sufficiency, demanding improvements in school programs, establishing a grocery store to bypass inflated prices, and exposing election fraud. Local authority responded to Huey's revolution with a hostile backlash that eventually led to an investigation by the FBI. Huey's book, They’ll Cut Off Your Project: A Mingo County Chronicle, tells a tale of the triumphs and failures of Johnson's war on poverty, describing in detail why and how a local government that is supposed to work for the public’s welfare cuts off a project intended to achieve social reform. You can find this fascinating read on amazon.com at the following link: They'll Cut Off Your Project.

Marzano's Classroom Instruction that Works

I usually write about biographical books about remarkable teachers, but I feel I just have to share this really great resource about pedagogy with everyone. This book, Classroom Instruction that Works by Robert Marzano, provides nine strategies for improving the quality of instruction in any classroom. Many of these strategies are probably ones that you are using already, but this volume explains in easy terms why the strategy works. The strategies that may be new to the reader would be easy to incorporate into any teacher's lesson plans. All of them are easy to justify to an administrator who may be observing your classroom. At my school, the staff as a whole made a concerted effort to incorporate these strategies as often as possible, and we saw our test scores skyrocket. You can find this very useful and very reasonably priced book at amazon through the following link: Classroom Instruction that Works.

 

Etta Schureman Jones: The Teacher who Became a Prisoner of War

Etta Schureman was over forty years old when she and her sister ventured into Alaska Territory to teach Native Eskimos in primitive rural schools. After one year, the sister returned to the Lower 48, but Etta, who had met the love of her life and married, settled permanently in Alaska. Eighteen years later, Etta and her husband, Foster Jones, were working together  in the remote Aleutian island of Attu when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Empire of Japan on December, 7, 1941, "a day that will live in infamy." They were slated to be evacuated by the U.S. Navy when the island was invaded by Japanese troops. Although the couple were in their sixties, they killed Foster and removed Etta to an internment camp in Japan, where she was incarcerated with a small group of Australian nurses who were also prisoners of war. The Attuan natives, about three dozen of them, were also taken to Japan, with the apparent intention of assimilating them into the Japanese population. Although the surviving Attuans were repatriated after the war, Etta never saw her students or their families again. Etta's intriguing tale of survival is told brilliantly by Mary Breu in her book Last Letters from Attu: The True Story of Etta Jones: Alaska Pioneer and Japanese POW. A fascinating read, to be sure. You can find this book at amazon at the following link: Last Letters from Attu. I have also included a chapter about this fascinating teacher in the book I am currenlty writing, Chalkboard Heroes.

Leonard Covello and the Making of Benjamin Franklin High School

Here's a great book for anyone who is interested in progressive education or pluralism in education: Leonard Covello and the making of Benjamin Franklin High School: Education as if Citizenship Mattered. Leonard Covello came to the United States in 1896 as a nine-year-old Italian immigrant. Despite immense cultural and economic pressures at home, Leonard wanted to get an education. As an adult, he analyzed these cultural and economic pressures, which were common in Italian immigrant households at that time. He realized that Italian parents viewed the school as a wedge between their children and the family; he recognized the pressure even the youngest Italian children faced to go out and get a job rather than succeed in school. His answer? Involve the parents in the school, and involve the students in the community. The result was New York's Benjamin Franklin High School, a truly innovative marriage of school and home. Lots of lessons in this story are relevant even in today's times, especially for school personnel who are clamoring for more involvement from parents in the school system.

 

You can find this eye-opening book on amazon.com at the Leonard Covello link. You can also read the abbreviated version of Leonard Covello's life story in Chalkboard Champions.

Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul

This one is without a doubt a no-brainer: Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul: Stories to Open the Hearts and Rekindle the Spirits of Educators. Ever since it was first introduced, the Chicken Soup series, no matter what the topic, has been an uplifting choice. Anytime you're feeling down-and-out, and you need a quick professional pick-me-up, this volume will do it for you. I find this is a good book to keep on my desk at school, and when the students are doing their sustained silent reading (SSR), I can read an entry or two at the same time. When they see you leisure reading, hopefully they are inspired to read even more. What's good about using a book like this for SSR is that the entries are short, so time doesn't get away from you, and if you get interrupted, you can easily pick up where you left off. Try it! You can acquire this book at amazon at the following link: Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul.

Mary Tsukamoto: Teacher, Prisoner, American Hero

At the start of World War II, Mary Tsukamoto was living a quiet life as the wife of a strawberry farmer in a diminuitive Japanese-American community in Florin, Northern California. When Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941, "a day that will live in infamy," Mary's quiet life was suddenly turned upside-down. Like 120,000 other persons of Japanese descent living on the West Coast, most of them American citizens, Mary was forced into a relocation camp by the U.S. government because her loyalty to our country was questioned. Mary, her husband, their five-year-old daughter, her elderly in-laws, her teenaged brother and sisters, and other members of her family wound up in Jerome, Arkansas, where they were incarcerated until authorities were convinced this family of farmers posed no threat to national security. While detained in the camp, Mary became part of a prisoner-organized effort to provide meaningful educational opportunities for their imprisoned children. Mary taught speech courses for the high school students and English language classes for the elderly.

After the war, she returned to college, completed her degree, and became an elementary schoolteacher, one of the first certificated Japanese American teachers in the United States. Her remarkable story is told in her autobiography, We the People, a volume which unfortunately is now out of print. However, with some effort, it can be found through second-hand book sellers or in some libraries (check WorldCat), and it is well worth the hunt. You can read also read her story in Chalkboard Champions, available through amazon.com.

Sandra Adickes and Legacy of a Freedom School

Sandra Adickes was an energetic and idealistic thirty-year-old New York City schoolteacher in 1964, the year she ventured south into Mississippi to teach in a Freedom School. The goal of the summer program was to empower the black community to register to vote and to help bridge some of the gap of educational neglect that had long been a tradition in that Jim Crow state. Both blacks and whites realized that only through education and participation in the democratic process could African Americans hope to improve their lot.

 

The enterprise was not without danger. On the first day of Freedom Summer, three workers involved in the program disappeared while investigating the firebombing of the church facility designated for their voter recruitment activities. Six weeks later, as Sandra Adickes conducted her classes in Hattiesburg, the badly beaten and bullet-ridden bodies of the three missing men were discovered buried in an earthen dam in nearby Neshoba County.

 

At summer's end, Sandra's fearless students decided to integrate the Hattiesburg Public Library in what became, in effect, a graduation trip with an emphasis on civic reform. Sandra was arrested in the effort. Read her riveting story, and what became of her courageous students, in her book Legacy of a Freedom School. You can also find a chapter about this remarkable teacher in Chalkboard Champions.

How Did I Select Teachers to Write About in the Book?

I am often asked how I selected the teachers I wrote about in my book, Chalkboard Champions. Two of the twelve were easy: Anne Sullivan, the teacher who worked with Helen Keller, and Jaime Escalante, the teacher who was the subject of the movie Stand and Deliver. I don't think a book about outstanding teachers can be written if these two are excluded. It helped that Anne Sullivan worked with handicapped students and Jaime Escalante worked with inner city Latino youth, since the thrust of my book is teachers who worked with disenfranchised student populations. After I selected these two, I began to think about other groups of disenfranchised students. I thought about minority groups such as Native Americans and African Americans, which led me to Elaine Goodale Eastman, Charlotte Forten Grimke, Carter Godwin Woodson, and Sandra Adickes. I specifically looked for a teacher in Hawaii, and discovered Gladys Kamakakuokalani Brandt. I have to say, the chapter I wrote for Gladys is among my favorite chapters. Then I considered underprivileged students such as the poor, orphans, and newly-arrived immigrants. Researching these groups led me to Julia Richman, Clara Comstock, and Leonard Covello. I specifically looked for a teacher who was working with students in World War II Japanese internment camps, and after much effort found Mary Tsukamoto. I stumbled across Eulalia Bourne, and couldn't resist her.

 

When selecting the teachers I wrote about, I tried to include a good cross section of ethnic groups, both as teachers and as student groups. I strove to include both men and women, although it is easier to find women teachers to write about, and I also attempted to include representation from a variety of geographic regions within the United States. I also tried to select teachers that came from different time periods in our history, starting from the Civil War era and continuing through to more contemporary times.

 

I love to tell stories about remarkable teachers, and although I selected twelve very extraordinary teachers to write about, there were, of course, many more that I did not have room to include in the volume. I hope to write about these others in future publications! You can read the fascinating stories of the remarkable teachers mentioned above in the book  Chalkboard Champions, available on amazon.