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About me…Writing your biography feels a bit like penning your own epitaph – creepy and daunting at the same time. But if you’re reading this, it means that you’re somewhat interested in who I am, so here goes... I grew up in Western New York and had the awesome opportunity to spend summers with friends swimming in my neighbor’s pool, hang out with my cousins at my gram’s cottage at Lake Owasco and camp with my family in the Allegany Mountains. I’m convinced that my Being a big sister is another reason I am who I am….This is one of my favorite pictures on the planet: me holding my first sister Cheryl. Growing up with a sibling who was profoundly mentally retarded taught me three crucial things: that anyone who tells you that someone else “can’t” or “never will” is a coward and a liar, The toughest obstacle I’ve had to overcome so far in my life is to be in this world without my sister Cheryl. She died suddenly on August 30, 2008. While it’s taking me some time to figure out how to be in this world without her, she’s a constant reminder to me of the true power of empathy and compassion. Let’s see…what else has made me, me??? Oh, yeah: my first teaching job. Fun~! Seventeen years I spent directing and teaching in an alternative education program (in the same school from which I graduated which, come to think about it, was a bit weird.) Despite my first classroom being in the same hall that I’d taken Spanish as a freshman (like I said, weird), I loved every minute of it. My Crossroads kids taught me how to be a teacher. They taught me that teaching them meant reaching them first. Our classroom community became an oasis in that tumultuous Sea of High School where not everyone fits neatly into those externally prescribed categories.
Simply put, I wanted to keep learning. After my 15th year of teaching, I put in for a half-year sabbatical to do some work around technology and literacy. I was all set to go off and learn lots of cool stuff to bring back to school, and then Hurricane Katrina hit… I wound up spending most of my sabbatical coordinating with art therapists from California to engage teenagers displaced by the hurricane at Renaissance Village in Baton Rouge, the largest FEMA trailer park in U.S. history. We wrote, took pictures, created art, traveled to New Orleans and – I hope – healed somewhat. Returning to the classroom after that experience was tough; I felt torn: how do I go back to what I’d been doing in the only school I’d ever been in, within the only community I’d ever lived after everything I’d seen? To pretend that I hadn’t been a witness to what happened in New Orleans, to silence my voice of advocacy for the kids our country seemed to think “couldn’t” or “never would” and to not continue the expansion of my own learning proved impossible. I used to have this poster on my desk at school that read, “If you don’t model what you teach, you’re teaching something else.” I’d always told my kids that to be the person they wanted to be, they’d need to keep growing and learning: which meant having to push themselves beyond their comfort zone. I sure as heck couldn’t preach that while not doing it myself. I needed to model what I stood for. So, in the summer of 2007, I submitted my letter of resignation, sold my house and moved 3,000 miles away to work in school reform. Fast forward to 2009: I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to be an instructional leadership coach with the Oregon Small Schools Initiative for a year and a half, working with newly-formed small schools throughout the state; I’m currently an adjunct professor in the MAT program at Marylhurst University, teaching about writing and literacy across content areas to pre-service secondary teachers; and I’m a volunteer writing facilitator for an amazing literary organization called Write Around Portland. On the writing front, I completed a book for teachers detailing how to create classroom community to connect with kids in crisis and am now back to my fiction writing, meeting regularly with my critique group to hammer out my third YA manuscript…It’s been a busy couple of years, I tell you~! My goal now is to get myself back into a school to work directly with teachers trying to make a difference in the classroom, to go back to helping kids and their families by being that voice for those who continue to be told that they “can’t” and “never will” and to keep finding ways to channel my passion for reading and writing to make a difference in the lives of kids.
Totally makes up for not striking it rich J
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love of the outdoors is a direct result of my parents not being rich – no hotels or summer camps for this girl~! From mid-June to that Wednesday after Labor Day, it was up to me to create my own fun. No doubt in my mind that my passion for reading books and writing stories stemmed from these months of summer freedom…Not to mention the weeks of sub-freezing temps that kept the skies full of snow and me tucked inside. Come to think of it, some pretty darn good writers grew up around here: Laurie Halse Anderson, Linda Sue Park, Vivian Vande Velde, Andrea Barrett and Richard Russo…I’d venture to hypothesize that Lake Effect may directly impact the development of good writing habits J
that to be a voice for those who are not listened to is one of the most important things you can do with your life and that I was meant to use my passion for reading and writing to make a difference for kids…
Here’s what else working with my students taught me: that people who said my kids “couldn’t” or “never would” were cowards and liars; that being a voice for these kids and their families was the most important job I’d ever do; and that connecting with kids through reading and writing was the most powerful way to impact change.
So then, you ask, why did I leave the classroom? Fair question...
And the bonus? Because I’m in one of the most beautiful places in the country, I get to create my own fun and play outdoors on a regular basis, just like when I was a kid.