About

Elementary School

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If you had asked me when I was a teen what the biggest decision of my life was, I’d have told you it was a choice my grandmother gave my 10-year-old self. Which Christmas present would I prefer she give me--"a doll or a book"? She skillfully sewed beautiful doll clothes . . . but I did love books! Oh, how I agonized over that decision!

 

I ended up choosing a doll. I could have easily chosen a book, for I had a voracious appetite for reading, often lazing around in bed while devouring a whole book and a sleeve of soda crackers in a day.

 

Junior High School

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In seventh grade, the spunky Miss Shriner helped develop the writer in me. She assigned a personal narrative, which I desperately wish I had now. The only thing I remember about mine was its being funny. I'd never suspected I could be humorous. That pivotal assignment helped predestine my future!

 

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Let me share a bit of history about how my present career unfolded.

 

High School

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As a senior, I lived in Macon, Georgia. Our then-mayor, "Machine Gun Ronnie" Thompson, had resisted implementing Brown vs. Board of Education. The U. S. Supreme Court that year mandated complete desegregation of public schools. What an academic and social upheaval ensued!

 

I had the most wonderful English teacher, though--Ms. Ella Carter, a spunky, outspoken African-American. It was she who introduced me to sentence analysis. I think language-geeky me must have been her prize pupil, for she expelled me from class one day. "Leave out the room!" she commanded. I was to study independently in the library while she focused on teaching students who had been bussed from across town and who were behind in their skills. She also then recommended me to the Bibb County Board of Education for my very first job--afterschool tutor. I vividly recall one girl who couldn't determine the verb in the sentence "The dog bit the postman," despite my acting it out! For that game of charades and my other efforts, I earned fifty cents an hour! 

 

College and Post Grad Career

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Another decision: Should I study to become a teacher or a writer? Savoring the thrill of educating students in language but still wanting to write stories and poems, I majored in college English and worked on the university's magazine staff. 

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With a sheepskin calligraphed "B.A. in English," I could have continued in my job with the magazine, but it was only part-time. I was offered a full-time position, however, as an English teacher at a start-up college. Another decision! I packed all my worldly goods into my 1972 Nova and drove 750 miles to a rural town with only one blinking yellow light. I fully intended to climb the academic ladder from grad student to dean of the English department. The die was cast. 

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School Career

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Unfortunately, the fledgling college failed within a few semesters, forcing my transition to a private school as a junior-high English teacher. Over the next twenty-plus years, I taught in several different schools at many different grade levels, playing educational Chutes and Ladders. I went all the way down the ladder at one point, teaching 4-year-old kindergarten.

 

A self-driven introvert, I enjoy connecting deeply with students, helping them to understand both educational concepts and themselves. Finding ways to accomplish these goals triggers my creative genes. I've imagined and implemented everything from staging adaptations of Shakespearean plays and designing a modern take on colonial hornbooks to hosting a spelling bee and all-day Victorian galas to culminate a study of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.

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Inkwell Career

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When I eventually left the classroom, parents began to call me to tutor their children. I'd come full circle, back to my high school job--thankfully, increasing my hourly wage a hundredfold! Inkwell began around my dining room table in 2006. Before I knew it, I was overwhelmed with requests and had to engage other like-minded teachers to help. A team was born.

 

Growing the Inkwell business over the course of 18 years has brought me much satisfaction, but my true passion is and always has been teaching students. I've returned to working directly with them now, inspiring them with my love of language and literature, reading and writing. That's what I want to do until I live to 102! At which point, my epitaph would be worthy of inclusion in Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology:  "BELOVED TEACHER, BURIED IN PAPERWORK."