Experience Summary
I retired from teaching after thirty one years in a variety of places. I began teaching English and drama in 1974 in Alleghany County, Virginia. After two years there, I moved to Sussex County, Virginia, where I taught for one year. I got married in 1977, and taught in Charleston, South Carolina where my husband was stationed while he was in the Navy. In 1979, I returned to Sussex and taught another year before finally coming home to Goochland, Virginia. I spent the remainder of my teaching career there. From 1980 through 1995, I taught English 9 and 10 and drama in the high school. In 1995, I moved to the middle school, where I taught 6th grade drama and English 7, 8, and gifted English 7 until I retired in 2006.
Teaching Style
My strength lies in my ability to motivate my students. One of my former assistant principals said that I could get my kids to do anything for me. I motivated them by making learning fun. I have never been one who liked worksheets, but I loved hands on experience. My students did too. Once when we were studying prepositions, and the kids were having a hard time understanding them, I taped clouds on the wall in the hall way. I told them to complete the statement with a preposition: “---the cloud.” Each student wrote a preposition and put it on the cloud in the hallway. I believed in learning by doing—I still do.