Minnesota schoolteacher, pioneer, and photographer Sarah Louise Judd

Throughout American history there are many examples of frontier pioneers and innovators who became schoolteachers. One such young woman was Sarah Louise Judd.

Sarah Judd was born June 16, 1802, in Farmington, Connecticut. During her childhood there, she completed her education. In 1832, Sarah's family moved to Marine Mills, Illinois, where her father established a tavern and her brothers became stockholders in the Marine Lumber Company.

Later, the Judd family became frontier pioneers and headed for the new territory of Minnesota. In 1846, Sarah founded the first school in Point Douglas, Minnesota, and later she founded the first school in Stillwater. The Stillwater school was established in a small vacant log cabin.

In January, 1849, the veteran schoolteacher married Ariel Eldridge. The couple had no children.

In her day, a French citizen named Louis Daguerre invented the ability to take photographs called "dagueereotypes." The enterprising Sarah established a photography studio in her home town in Spring, 1848. In so doing, she became the first professional photographer in Minnesota.

Following a long illness, Sarah passed away in Stillwater on October 12, 1886, at the age of 84. She was buried in Fairwater Cemetery in Stillwater's Washington County.

Teacher Robert Boone: 2009 Chicagoan of the Year

There are many examples of talented teachers who win national acclaim for their work. One of these teachers is Robert (Bob) Boone, a creative writing teacher from Chicago, Illinois.

Robert was born and raised in Winnetka, Illinois, although he spent some of his childhood in Germany. He earned his master's degree from Columbia University and his Ph.D. at Northwestern University in 1975.

Robert's career as an educator began in 1964. In the early years of his teaching career, Robert taught fifth grade at Staten Island Academy in Staten Island, New York. He later relocated to Highland Park High School in Chicago. About thirty-five years ago he began working at the Glencoe Study Center, which he opened in 1979 to tutor high school dropouts who were seeking their GED. Robert founded outreach programs that emphasized developing the writing skills of inner-city students, particularly those who have not been successful in traditional educational settings.

In 1991, Robert founded a scholarship organization called the Young Chicago Authors, with the mission of encouraging teenagers to write. The program currently serves more than 5,000 teen authors each year. For this work, Robert was named "Chicagoan of the Year" by Chicago Magazine. In 2009, he was honored with an award from the Coming Up Taller Leadership Enhancement Conference at a White House event hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama.

Robert is the author of several books and textbooks, including Hack: The Meteoric Life of One of Baseball's First Superstars: Hack Wilson (1978), Moe's Cafe (2007), Forest High (2011), Back to Forest High (2015), and the acclaimed Inside Job: A Life of Teaching (2003).

Robert currently lives in Glencoe, Illinois, and has been married to his wife, Sue, for forty-six years. The marriage has produced three children and five grandchildren.

To check out Robert's web site, simply click on this link: Writing Teacher Hangout.

Elementary school teacher and former New Jersey First Lady Jean Byrne

There are many examples of talented teachers who have also made a mark in the political world. Such is certainly the case with Jean Featherly Byrne, an elementary school teacher who also became the First Lady of New Jersey.

Jean was born in Newark, New Jersey, on October 17, 1926. Her parents were George and Jane (Crysler) Featherly. She was raised in nearby West Orange. After she graduated from West Orange High School, Jean enrolled in Bucknell University, where she earned her bachelor's degree. Although she majored in Spanish, she garnered academic awards in English composition and literature. She later earned her master's degree in education from New York University.

Jean taught second grade at an elementary school in West Orange, New Jersey. She also taught in schools in Harlem and Manhattan. Jean married Brendan T. Byrne in 1953. In those days, women teachers were not allowed to work when they were in the family way, so when Jean became pregnant with her first child in 1954, she was forced to resign from her teaching position. Jean and her husband had a total of seven children together.

Jean became the First Lady of New Jersey when her former husband, Brendan Byrne, was elected governor in 1974. The couple served their state until 1982. During her tenure as First Lady, Jean concentrated her energy on issues related to education and health care. One of her daughters was born with Down's Syndrome, so Jean advocated tirelessly for research into the condition. She was a lifelong advocate of quality education and civil rights.

Jean and Brendan were divorced in 1993, and Jean settled in Princeton, New Jersey. She passed away from babesiosis, a tick-borne disease which affects the red blood cells, on August 9, 2015. She was 88 years old.

Teacher Eulalia Bourne: The Women's Libber from Arizona

Teacher Eulalia Bourne, whose career spanned more than four decades, taught elementary school in rural areas, mining camps, and Indian reservations throughout Arizona during some of our country's most challenging periods: World War I, the Depression, and World War II. This women's libber was ahead of her time, becoming one of the very few women in her day to own and run her own cattle ranch. Eulalia thought outside the box in many ways. Every year on the first day of school she would wear a new dress, usually blue to complement her eye color. Every day after that, she wore jeans, Western-style shirts, cowboy boots, and Stetson hats to class. She was once fired for dancing the one-step, a new jazz dance, at a birthday party some of her students attended, because the clerk of the board considered the dance indecent! She even learned to speak Spanish fluently and, when confronted with non-English-speaking students, taught her classes in Spanish, even though it was against the law to do so. But she is probably best known for producing a little classroom newspaper entitled Little Cowpunchers which featured student writings, drawings, and news stories about classroom events. Today, these little newspapers are recognized as important historical documents of Southern Arizona ranching communities from 1932 to 1943. Additionally, Eulalia published three critically-acclaimed books about her teaching and ranching experiences: Ranch Schoolteacher, Nine Months is a Year at Baboquivari School, and Woman in Levi's. These volumes, although now out of print, can sometimes be purchased at used book stores and sometimes can be found at online sites featuring royalty-free works. The read is well-worth the search, particularly for those interested in Arizona history. 

 

You can read about Eulalia's intriguing life in a book entitled Skirting Traditions, published by Arizona Press Women. You can also find a chapter about her in my book, Chalkboard Champions.

Nancie Atwell, the first recipient of the Global Teacher Prize

What honor could be more prestigious than being named a global teacher? Nancie Atwell, a teacher from Edgecomb, Maine, knows. This year, Nancie has been named by the Varkey Foundation as the very first recipient of the Global Teacher Prize, an honor which was been unofficially dubbed the Nobel Prize of teaching.

The Varkey Foundation searched all over the world for “one innovative and caring teacher who has made an inspirational impact on their students and their community.” They looked at thousands of possible winners, and whittled their list of finalists down to ten. When they looked closely at Nancie, they knew they had their winner.

Nancie was presented her award at a ceremony held last May in Dubai, where the Varkey Foundation is based. Among the dignitaries attending the ceremony were President Bill Clinton and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emerates. Speaking at the ceremony, President Clinton said, “I think the most important thing this prize has done is re-awaken the world’s appreciation of the importance of teachers.” Nancie said she was honored to accept the award. “I hope this will invite creative, smart young people to consider teaching as a career,” she expressed. “I hope to convey to young people considering teaching that it’s a privilege,” she continued.

An educator since 1973, Nancy founded the nonprofit Center for Teaching and Learning, a school in rural Maine, in 1990. At the facility, which features a library in every classroom, students read an average of forty books a year, far above the national average. They choose which books they read and then they write prolifically. Students get through dozens of books and write across all genres each year. Many of Nancie’s former students have gone on to become authors. The institution also serves as a demonstration school for developing and disseminating teaching methods. Nancy has donated the $1 million case award that comes with her prize to help pay for the upkeep and development of the school, and for scholarships.

In addition to her work at the Center, Nancie has authored nine books on teaching. Her volume In The Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning (1987) has sold more than half a million copies.

UNESCO's Celebration of World Teachers Day

Today is the sixteenth UNESCO celebration of World Teachers Day. The celebration is intended to spotlight the importance of the world's teachers, and bring awareness to all those students worldwide who are in need of teachers.

So, today, take the opportunity to sincerely thank a teacher, and tell them just how much of a positive influence they have had on your life, and how much you appreciate all they do to make the world a little bit better. It could be your teacher, your child's teacher, or a friend who is a teacher.

If you would like to know more about UNESCO's celebration of World Teachers Day, here is a link to an article: 2015 World Teachers Day.

Chalkboard Champion Leonard Covello: He Created the Ultimate Union Between School and Home

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 union 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: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America's Disenfranchised Students.