About the Authors

Beth Wohlleb Adel has taught middle and high school students for 10 years in many capacities: as a GED instructor for gang-in-volved youth, as a community service leader for urban youth in Boston, and as a Social Studies teacher in a public high school and middle school. She started and co-led one of the first gay-straight alliances in a public middle school. She is an adoptive and foster mother in a racially diverse family, and promotes awareness of all types of diversity and justice in the schools. She recently published curricula in the user guide for the exhibit “In Our Family: Portraits of All Kinds of Families” by Family Diversity Projects http:// www.lovemakesafamily.org.

Bob Amses teaches fifth grade at Kyrene del Milenio Elementary School in Phoenix, Arizona. Bob has been cited by Intel for his integration of technology in the elementary classroom, and was the subject of an article in their Autumn 2004 online education journal. Born and raised in New Jersey, Amses is a graduate of the State University of New York College at Brockport and received his postgraduate education degree from Arizona State University.

Judith Kauffman Baker is a secondary English teacher in the Boston Public Schools where she has taught since 1971 and has coached basketball for 20 years. Judith collaborates with South African educators in projects supporting rural teachers in the teaching of writing, critical thinking and HIV/AIDS education. Her major influences have been the Boston Writing Project, the anti-apartheid movement and anti-racism campaigns in her community. Judith has published articles in books by Lisa Delpit and Sonia Nieto. She is a National Board-certified teacher and has been recognized for excellence in teaching.

Patty Bode has been teaching art for 15 years in the public schools. Her classroom focuses on critical pedagogy through the arts in social action. She is a doctoral candidate with a concentration in Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The recipient of numerous awards and grants for her efforts in anti-racist curriculum reform in art education, she is currently an art teacher at Amherst Regional Middle School in Amherst, Massachusetts. She can be reached at pbode@comcast.net.

Mary Cowhey has been teaching first and second grade at Jackson St. School in Northampton, Massachusetts for 8 years. Before becoming a teacher, she was a community organizer for 14 years. Her essays have been published in What Keeps Teachers Going? and Teaching With Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach. She is a recipient of the 2002 Milken National Educator Award.

Laila M. Di Silvio currently teaches World Geography to sixth graders in Springfield, Massachusetts. A returned Peace Corps Volunteer and avid traveler, she seeks to prepare her students to be compassionate, knowledgeable, and just global citizens.

Bill Dunn is an English teacher at an inner-city vocational school in Massachusetts. He is a lifelong resident of the working-class town where he teaches. He is a vocal critic of “high stakes” testing and an advocate of vocational-technical education as a viable option for poor and working-class kids. He also coordinates an alternative evening program for struggling students.

Kristen French is a doctoral student in the Language, Literacy, and Culture program at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. She has been a teacher and teacher educator for over a decade. Kristen is currently working in an urban elementary school, where she is a theater and writing teacher.
Ayla Gavins is currently an academy director at the Orchard Gardens Pilot School in Roxbury, MA. A teacher for 12 years, Ayla spent the last 6 of those years teaching at the Mission Hill School, a progressive K–8 school founded by Deborah Meier. During those years she joined many other progressive educators in forums and collaboratives to sustain authentic assessments, project-based, and experiential learning in schools.

Mary Ginley is a fifth-grade teacher in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. A teacher for more than 30 years in both urban and suburban schools, she has spent most of her career with five-, six- and seven-year-olds. She recently changed grades and has fallen in love with ten-year-olds. She has also served as an adjunct professor of education at the University of Massachusetts, Springfield College and Bay Path College in Longmeadow. She was named the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year in 1997 and received National Board Certification in 1999.

For 30 years Stephen Gordon taught English in Boston high schools, followed by work with Boston teachers to support their craft development. He currently works in the National Writing Project initiatives on new teacher retention and student reading improvement, and with Snowden International School teachers and students on the transition from high school to college writing. His experiences also include teacher-research through the Boston Writing Project and participation in school-site and across-school teacher-inquiry groups, including Sonia Nieto’s “What Keeps Teachers Going” group.

Sandra Jenoure was born and raised in New York City. She received a B.A. in Sociology from Hunter College, in 1972, and began teaching right out of college; she taught in East Harlem for 25 years. During those years she taught science to grades 2 through 6 and worked as an administrative assistant to the principal. She has an M.A. in Early Childhood Education, an M.A. in Administration and Supervision, and an M.S. in Environmental Studies. She has received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching Certificate of Honor. For the past 13 years she has taught graduate courses at Hunter and City Colleges of the City University of New York.

Ambrizeth Lima is an immigrant from the Cape Verde Islands. She has been a teacher for 14 years and is presently writing her dissertation on the socialization of Cape Verdean boys in the United States. She is an active member of her community and is always involved in issues that concern immigrant youth and their wellbeing in the United States.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Yahaira D. Marquez has always been interested in reading and expressing herself through writing. After graduating with honors from Boston University and volunteering her time at various educational institutions across Boston, Massachusetts, she knew her decision to teach was well worth it. After teaching 9th grade English in Brooklyn, she moved to Virginia Beach, where she is currently working toward a Master’s Degree.
Katina Papson is an artist/photographer who is currently in her fifth year of teaching visual art and social justice performance at Amherst Regional High School in Massachusetts. An advocate for youth-initiated projects, Katina’s activism manifests in her classroom practice as well as through after-school and community wide organizing. She directs an alternative summer arts camp and has worked in nonprofit programs for teens.

A teaching veteran of 23 years, Melinda Pellerin-Duck was nominated Massachusetts State Teacher of the Year in 2004. As a high school teacher in Springfield, Massachusetts, she has taught law, history, and technology. Pellerin-Duck’s accomplishments include working with the New England School of Law so that high-school students can learn with first-year law students. In addition, she successfully worked in tandem with students and social activists to prevent closure of several local public libraries.

Seth Peterson has just completed his first decade of teaching at Snowden International School, where he has been the grateful apprentice to a faculty of dedicated educators. The past 10 years of working and learning in the Boston Public School System have convinced him that choices, creative autonomy, and human interactions—for teachers and students—are the forgotten treasures that just might save public education.

Elaine Stinson is an elementary educator for Amherst Public Schools in western Massachusetts. Elaine holds a Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts. Her field of study was within the Bilingual, ESL, Multicultural Education Program. She has also earned National Board Certification and has been teaching young children for 11 years. Elaine’s passion is finding ways to weave social justice education into the mainstream curriculum.

Nina Tepper has taught in the inner city public schools for over 20 years at both the elementary and middle-school levels. Currently, she provides school embedded staff professional development, teacher mentoring, and direct student instruction as a literacy Colloborative Professional Development Teacher in the Springfield Public Schools. As a consultant with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project since 1993, she has facilitated workshops at schools and conferences statewide. Nina was honored by the Massachusetts Department of Education as a Semifinalist for Massachusetts Teacher of the Year 2000.
Kerri Warfield is a graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with both a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Multicultural Education. She has taught visual arts to High School and Middle School children for the past 6 years and is currently teaching at North Middle School in Westfield, Massachusetts. Along with her teaching profession, she is also a commissioned artist, mentor, participant in the Foundation for Excellence in Schools (2005), and has guest-lectured at the University of Massachusetts.

Jennifer Welborn has been teaching science to all ages of students for over 18 years. She holds a Masters Degree in Education and a Bachelors Degree in Wildlife Biology. She was awarded the Anti-Defamation League’s World of Difference Teacher Incentive Award and The Pioneer Valley Woman of Distinction Award for the anti-bias curriculum she has developed and taught. Currently, she teaches eighth-grade science in Amherst, Massachusetts.