I grew up in the downriver Detroit community of Taylor, Michigan where I attended Harry S Truman High School.  It was there that I developed the two passions that drive me still today - teaching and music.  I even thought of combining them at one time, but I've found that my music is rooted in performance (voice and flute) while my teaching is connected to Literature and the Humanities.

 

I attended Adrian College and Wayne State University before finishing at Michigan State University.  Fresh out of the School of Education at MSU, my first job in 1983 was teaching high school in Taft, California. For trivia buffs, this school (Taft Union High School) was featured in a 1985 Kurt Russell / Robin Williams film entitled "The Best of TImes" - about two grown men trying to relive their glory days in high school.  In fact, many of my friends and former students had background roles during the filming of this picture.

 

I moved back to Michigan and became a Reading Consultant at Lansing Community College.  I also taught briefly at Lansing Catholic Central before coming into the East Lansing schools.  In 1990 I obtained a Masters Degree from MSU.

 

I have a a great many publication credits, particularly for poetry, and have appeared in over a dozen journals.  I also have contributed to two books on adolescents - Traci Dyer's Mother Voices and Nina Shandler's Ophelia's Mom.   I am an active member of the Red Cedar Writing Project (the local chapter of the National Writing Project) and of LATTICE (Linking All Types of Teachers to International Cross-Cultural Education).

 

In 2003 I was privileged to win a Fullbright Study Award to teach and develop a Language Arts curriculum in Nepal. (click here for story) It was quite an adventure - flying around Mt. Everest, teaching at a school for the blind, and dodging Maoist rebels trying to abduct foreign hostages.