Hannah Jensen Kempfer: The Abandoned Child Who Became a Chalkboard Champion

Hannah Jensen Kempfer was born on a ship in the North Sea, the daughter of a sailor and an unwed mother who was working as a stewardess. Shortly after her birth, her mother abandoned the child in an orphanage in Norway. Hannah was adopted the next year by a Norwegian family who immigrated to America in 1885. The family settled in Minnesota, where Hannah grew up in abject poverty.

When Hannah was only twelve years old, she took a train to Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where she was taken in by the family of a local milkman. There Hannah attended Fergus Falls High School, and then enrolled at Park Region Luther College, where she graduated at the age of 17. After she earned her teaching certificate, Hannah taught from 1898 to 1908 at a small rural schoolhouse. She married farmer Charles Taylor Kempfer in 1903, and although the couple never had any children of their own, they fostered eleven orphans.

In 1923, Hannah was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives, where she served from 1923 to 1930 and 1933 to 1942. She was one of four women elected to the Minnesota House following the passage of women's suffrage. She is best known for championing the causes of children, the conservation of natural resources, and the official selection of the Showy Ladies' Slipper as  Minnesota's state flower.

 

Hannah Jensen Kempfer is remembered today as a true chalkboard champion.

Chalkboard Champions are Everywhere!

Many people have asked me what inspired me to write the book Chalkboard Champions. I guess a large part of it has to do with coming home every night after spending another day investing my all into my kids, my lesson plans, my classroom, lugging a pile of papers to grade the size of Mount Everest, and then turning on the television to hear some politician or news commentator bemoaning the sad condition of "failing schools." How demoralizing!

Anyone who spends any time at all in schools knows that there is much more success than failure going on there! In any work environment I have been a part of in the last forty years, I have never seen a more hardworking, dedicated group of individuals than the teachers, administrators, and support staff that work at my school. And because I communicate with teachers from all over the country, I can tell this dedication and work ethic are shared by professional educators everywhere. The world is full of amazing teachers, and these chalkboard champions need to be celebrated!

I love to share stories about remarkable teachers, and there are so many wonderful and inspirational stories to be told! I simply selected twelve of them throughout American history to explore in my book. My hope is that these stories will revive the spirit of the professional educator and cultivate respect and appreciation for the teaching profession from the general public. The book can be found on amazon at the following link: Chalkboard Champions.

Roberta Flack: An Iconic Singer Who Was Once a Teacher

Many people have heard of the Grammy Award-winning songwriter and singer Roberta Flack, whose best-known songs are "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," "Killing Me Softly With His Song," and "Where Is the Love?" But did you know that this famous jazz, folk, and R&B icon was once a public school teacher?

Roberta Flack was born February 10, 1937, in Black Mountain, North Carolina, although she was raised in Arlington, Virginia. Her mother was a church organist, so Roberta grew up in a musical household. At the age of nine, Roberta began to study classical piano, and by the time she was fifteen, she had won a music scholarship to Howard University. She completed her undergraduate work and her student teaching as the first African American student teacher at an all-white school near Chevy Chase, Maryland. Then Roberta accepted a position teaching music and English in Farmville, North Carolina, a gig which paid her only $2,800 per year. She also taught junior high school in Washington, DC, and at the same time she took side jobs as a night club singer. It was there that she was discovered and signed to a contract for Atlanta Records. The rest, as they say, is music business history.

In recent years, Roberta's contribution to education came when she founded an after-school music program entitled "The Roberta Flack School of Music" to provide music education to underprivileged students in the Bronx, New York City.

If You Don't Feed the Teachers They Eat the Students

If You Don't Feed the Teachers They Eat the Students. So says educator and author Neilia A. Connors, Ph.D. She ought to know, she's had an extensive career as a teacher at the elementary and middle school levels, an administrator, a university professor, and a consultant.

Connors's humorous book, which presents her message through using cooking analogies and acronyms, dishes up practical advice for classroom teachers and administrators who hunger to create a positive school environment. Her goal is to share some simple kitchen-tested recipes for creating a climate of success and high moral throughout any campus.

Highly acclaimed, the book boasts a rating of  #24 on amazon's best-seller list. If You Don't Feed the Teachers They Eat the Students is available through amazon.com.

Educating (Chalkboard Champion) Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

A great read for any teacher regardless of number of years of service is Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year. This hilariously funny book, first published in 1999 but revised and republished in 2001, was recorded by 24-year-old Esme Raji Codell, a first-year teacher in an inner-city public school in Chicago.

The diary shines a spotlight on a real-life classroom from the perspective of a beginning teacher. Codell presents her daily battles with bureaucrats, gang members, abusive parents, and her own insecurities, but in the process she reveals what it takes to be an exceptional teacher.

This highly-acclaimed book is recommended by School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. You can find the volume on the web site of Barnes and Noble at the following link: Educating Esme.

Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire

Chalkboard champion Rafe Esquith teaches in a Los Angeles community infested with gang activity, guns, and drug abuse. The fifth graders in his classroom are the children of immigrants who live in poverty and who speak English as a second language. These students also perform Shakespeare, play Vivaldi, score in the top 1 percent on standardized tests, and go on to attend four-year universities. How does Esquith teach in ways that foster these accomplishments? He explains his strategies and techniques in his 2007 book Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire!

In his book, Rafe Esquith reveals that the two mottoes in his classroom are “Be Nice, Work Hard” and “There Are No Shortcuts.” His students voluntarily come to school at 6:30 in the morning and work until 5:00 in the afternoon. Among the lessons Esquith teaches his students are learning to handle money responsibly, traveling the country to study history, reading the American classics, and pairing Hamlet with rock and roll.

Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire! is an inspirational read for any classroom teacher. You can find this wonderful resource on amazon at the following link: Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire!

Across Five Aprils: Chalkboard Champion and Novelist Irene Hunt

Many teachers are familiar with the historical novels of Irene Hunt: Across Five Aprils, Up a Road Slowly, and The Lottery Rose, for example. But did you know that Hunt was also a distinguished teacher?

 

Hunt graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1939, and earned her master's degree from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in 1946. She taught English and French in public schools in Oak Park, Illinois, from 1930 to 1945. For the next four years she taught psychology at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, and then she returned to teaching in public schools in Cicero, Illinois, from 1950 to 1969, when she retired to write full time. She published her first novel, Across Five Aprils, when she was 57 years old.

 

As a young girl, Hunt spent a great deal of time with her grandfather, who spent countless hours recounting stories of his childhood during the Civil War. These stories eventually became the basis of her historical novels.

 

Hunt was a pro at using historical novels in the classroom. She once said, "While teaching social studies to junior high school students, I felt that teaching history through literature was a happier, more effective process."