Paula Whiteley began her teaching career in 1978 at Aoba International
school in Tokyo, Japan. After returning to the United States after
three years overseas, she taught primarily in large, urban districts
in Texas, including San Antonio, Houston ISD, and Spring Branch ISD.
She is currently employed now as a bilingual 3rd grade teacher at
Rosehill Elementary in Tomball, Texas.
She has climbed Mount Fuji to the top and watched the sunrise over
the summit. She has also flown on a NASA plane – not a rocket – in
conjunction with an 18-month astronomy course she participated in
at Texas University at Austin. She was one of two Texas teachers
chosen to fly on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, at the culmination
of the astronomy course, which also included a visit to NASA Ames
research near San Francisco, California.
She has also sat at her desk and combed the live, squirming lice
out of an elementary child’s head in San Antonio.
Her school “creds” are twenty-five plus years in the
trenches of the public school system in Texas. She knows the joys
of motivating children to learn, and the frustration of burdensome
minutiae and paperwork.
She began teaching when Texas had the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills,
which morphed into TEAMS, which became TAAS, which has turned into
today’s TAKS test.
Some of her poignant memories are:
• Watching Japanese teachers quickly extinguish the flames on the burners
of the stove while warming noodles during an earthquake in Tokyo – fire
being one of the most dangerous aspects of an earthquake
• The colored tags of children’s names, parents’ names and “hoodies” always
ready on the back of a child’s chair -all necessary for protection and
identification during earthquakes
• Wednesdays, which were “enchilada day” in San Antonio ISD
• Attempting to paddle a rowdy Navasota fourth grader with an “apern” in
the olden days of corporal punishment (she had grabbed an apron instead of a
paddle, both of which were located on hooks next to each other by the door – the
young man asked with a grin, “Ms. Whiteley, ya’ gonna paddle me with
that apern?”)
• The drive through central Texas to take a bilingual multiple sclerosis
student in her classroom to MS camp
• Knocking on the doors of mobile homes to plead with immigrant parents
to allow their third graders to take swimming classes in third grade in San Antonio
ISD
• Being included in the group of eighty-eight first graders, their parents,
and teachers from Crockett Elementary in Houston, Texas that were treated to
Disneyland by Oprah Winfrey
Paula has a master’s degree in administration, and a doctorate
in teacher friends across the state. The closest she has come, thus
far, to actually achieving the doctorate was a running joke with
another teacher at Will Rogers Elementary in San Antonio. When it
became necessary to mop up vomit because the janitor liked to hide
from the principal, she and Pauline would assure each other, “I’m
working on my doctorate now.”
Peruse the website, leave comments and share your memories and frustrations
of public school education, whether you are a teacher or parent,
and enjoy the ride that has so far spanned three decades and two
continents.
You will find my Blog,
where I leave my comments and other professionals can reply.
I hope that this is a site that educators will visit often, and be
able to learn from each other and speak their minds. You can also
go to the Contact page to send Paula an email. |
