Interview with Judith Eadie Reber

Karen Blair: Mrs. Reber, thank you so much for coming in and sharing with us your own personal history in terms of your preparation to become a teacher and your subsequent career in education. This will help us understand the evolution of teacher education at Towson across time a little bit better. And I guess a good place to begin would be in the beginning, so if you would share with us a little bit about your early social context: where you grew up, what kinds of thoughts you were having about what you wanted to be when you grew up, and as you started to approach college and high school, what were your thoughts? Judith Reber: Okay. I’m a product of Baltimore County. I grew up in the southeast area of Baltimore County in a community called Gray Manor which is a suburb of Dundalk. It’s a working class neighborhood. Most of my friends and their parents worked at either Bethlehem Steel, Sparrows Point, General Motors or Martin Marietta. That was a good place to grow up. But I also grew up in a community where college was not a priority among my friends. I had many friends who did go on to college, but just as many that looked forward to graduating from high school and going directly to a very well-paying job at Sparrows Point. So many folks that certainly had the capability and the talents to go on to college never went that direction because they were assured of a very good livelihood working at Sparrows Point. So that was a big factor in that the expectations in the neighborhood among my peers were quite diverse. I’m the first in my family to attend college. Both my parents came to Maryland from Pennsylvania. And I guess back in the 50’s, when I was born, the expectations were that if I go to college – no let me rephrase that – when I go to college, I would became either a teacher or a nurse. There was no other profession even under consideration. And nursing was definitely not in my blood. Luckily, my parents’ expectations and my own desires went hand-in-hand, because I think I was born a teacher. I’m one of those folks that you hear about, you know, the little three-year old who lines up the teddy bears, and teaches them in the classroom or at the kitchen table or whatever it was, and then went on to elementary school. I used to coerce my buddies in the neighborhood to come over in the mornings in the summertime, and we would build a school with hanging blankets in the trees. Of course, I got to be the teacher. And probably my greatest possession at that time was a teacher’s guide to a math book that was given to me by my third grade teacher, Mrs. Robinson. And I kept that book and cherished that for years, because that made me a real teacher. And from that time on, I have just been involved in teaching in a lot of different venues: Sunday school, Future Teachers of America, and so on. And then when it came time to start looking at colleges, money was definitely an issue. My first choice to go to college was the University of Maryland or Frostburg and then Towson. And because I would have had to have paid not only the tuition but also room and board at Frostburg and the University of Maryland, I made the decision to come to Towson, where I could commute. So that’s what brought me to Towson. K.B.: Great. So you got here, and you were in the field of elementary or early childhood? J.R.: Elementary. K.B.: Elementary. And did you have a sense of the age group that you would want to work with? J.R.: I didn’t going into it. But the experiences that I had at Towson through the observation and participation courses, and then student teaching, helped me realize that I was not cut out to be a primary teacher. I had experiences both in fourth grade and first grade and I felt very at home with the fourth grade, and first grade, was like, “What am I doing here? This is not me.” K.B.: So you come and you’re a commuter. That’s a little bit different from some of your fellow students who are living on campus and perhaps were thinking or were having a richer experience by virtue of the fact that they were on campus all the time. What do you remember about your experience at the university? And that can be anything from your regular what we call now GenEds, of course that name is going to change, or more specifically about your education courses. J.R.: This is a difficult question for me to answer, because I really have very little recall of my four years at Towson. K.B.: Interesting. J.R.: I think it was a product of what was going on, and Towson became a means to an end. And that end was becoming a teacher. But the means to get there was that I was living about 18 to 20 miles away from the campus and commuting, getting here for eight o’clock classes, and then running when classes got over in the afternoon. I held two or three jobs throughout my entire four years at Towson, so it was running to one or the other of the jobs, and then going home and doing the homework, and then running back up here in the evening if I had to go to the library or anything. So it was a pretty hectic four years. K.B.: Yes. J.R.: And getting all the work done for the classes and so on, I did okay. I was here. I certainly wasn’t Dean’s List material, but I did okay. I guess my greatest memories are in the history classes that I took. K.B.: Interesting. J.R.: Yes. And I had Dr. Esslinger, who I believe is an Assistant to the Provost here at the university now. I had him when he was in his first year at Towson as a history instructor. K.B.: Interesting. J.R.: And I also had a gentleman named Dr. Mruck for World Civilization classes. Those were just two very dynamic teachers. Even though I’m not a history major or a history buff. They just pulled me right in. K.B.: Interesting. J.R.: Yes, they’re outstanding in their teaching style. K.B.: Well, then some role models. J.R.: Yes. K.B.: In that at least. But not much about – do you have any recollection about when you actually had the opportunity to go into schools and at least observe? J.R.: Yes. I think that I had a whole plethora of methods courses because we took not only teaching reading and teaching math, but we were also required to take teaching music in the elementary school, teaching art, teaching phys. ed., and they were exciting classes. But I don’t recall any observation and participation that went with those classes. The first one that I recall was in the semester just prior to student teaching, when we went out one day a week in a public school setting, and I went to Timber Grove Elementary in Reisterstown in a fourth grade class there. So that was my first experience that I recall, just prior to student teaching, getting out into the public schools. K.B.: And that was one day a week. J.R.: Yes. K.B.: And what did you do? Did you just observe students, do you think? J.R.: No. I was in a fourth grade class, and it started out observing what was going on and trying to take in the whole action, what was going on in the classroom. Then it gradually evolved. My first lesson I ever taught occurred during that observation/participation phase. I remember it well to this day, because it was a spelling lesson. And that twenty minute spelling lesson took me about two to three hours to prepare. K.B.: Of course. J.R.: But that was my first opportunity to really teach a lesson, and get in front of a group, a class and make them excited about, I don’t know, those long a, long e, whatever it happened to be at that time. But that was my first experience in teaching. K.B.: Well that’s great. Well, how did you do? How did you feel about that lesson? J.R.: About the spelling lesson? Oh, I think I was pretty excited about it, because I was so planned, that I think I could have predicted just about every word that would have come out of my mouth at that time. And things went well, and it was good. K.B.: So this was not – you didn’t go screaming from the room and say, “What was I thinking?” J.R.: No, no. K.B.: You sort of sounded like you felt that you were in the right place. J.R.: Yes. That was one 20 minute spelling lesson, yes. K.B.: So, that takes us up to that semester where you’re actually in schools and doing your student teaching. And do you remember where you were for those? J.R.: That’s very easy to remember, yes. I was assigned originally to Chapel Hill Elementary, which is now in the White Marsh area, but it was long before White Marsh ever existed . . . the big community. And a week before my student teaching was supposed to begin, I got a letter in the mail saying that Chapel Hill was too crowded; they didn’t have enough mentors to accommodate the number of students that had been assigned there, and I had been reassigned to Gray Manor Elementary. And that’s where I went to elementary school. It’s right around the corner from where I lived! K.B.: Well, how did you feel about that? Was that . . . J.R.: That was a very unusual feeling, when you go in, because you’re now in a whole different role, and many of the teachers that I had there were still teaching at the school. So you put them on their teaching pedestal, and all of a sudden, you are looking at them more as, not peers exactly, but a little closer. That was a real learning experience, but also something that you had to get over; how to relate to them in a different way. And they, to a person, were very, very helpful and kind of excited to see one of their own come back into the school. K.B.: And were you there for both experiences? J.R.: Yes. And that is where I found out that I was not really designed to be a primary teacher. My experiences were in first grade and in fourth grade. K.B.: Right. And what did you like about fourth that you didn’t find in first? J.R.: I guess when I look at fourth grade, they are still young, still very excited about learning, still relatively easy to motivate, but they’re beginning to have a mind of their own, and they’re beginning to question and they’re beginning to look at things from different perspectives. So you become more of a facilitator of learning and a guide more so than teaching the facts they need to learn, or the word identification skills, and so on. So I think the interactions that are possible as you start working with older students are something that I really enjoy. K.B.: Yes. So that went well! J.R.: It did! K.B.: And you’re at the end of your spring semester? J.R.: Fall. K.B.: Or end of your student teaching, and how are you feeling about things? J.R.: Well, I think I affirmed that I knew I was supposed to be a teacher. And I was in the right place. I was excited, because I saw teaching as an opportunity to approach things from more of a creative perspective. When I began teaching, or in student teaching, things were not, I don’t want to say ‘looser’ because you certainly had a curriculum to follow, but you had more latitude in how you approached that curriculum. So, there’s an opportunity for you to bring in your own creativity to the lesson, and bring out the creativity and critical thinking of the kids that you are teaching. So that was good. So at the end of student teaching, I was ready to take on my own class. K.B.: So you finished at the end of a fall semester? J.R.: Fall. K.B.: Had you applied to school systems? What happened? What’s the next step? J.R.: During the fall semester, the recruiters from the personnel department in Baltimore County Public Schools came to our school to interview us right there. K.B.: Really! J.R.: So, I was interviewed by John Bailey; I still remember the man. And then you just waited. And that was a long spring, because people didn’t start getting contracts until probably March/April. So I finished up the course work here that I still had to do, all the time checking the mail every day. K.B.: And? You must have gotten a letter at some point! J.R.: I did. I got a letter in April saying that I had been assigned to Grange Elementary. And Grange is in the community that is next door to Gray Manor. So, I just went a mile in the other direction from my home. And I was assigned to Grange as a fourth grade teacher, room 16--I still remember it very clearly--and just could not wait to get over there and see my room. I remember going in the day that I got my contract. School was already over, and I banged on the front door and just wanted to walk in school and see what it was like. So, the custodian was kind enough to let me in, and show me around. K.B.: Very nice. So, you go in there to see the kids start the semester--start the school year--and are you still excited when September comes? J.R.: Umm . . . I was very much an idealist and an optimist. Certainly exciting, and excited to be there and just could not wait to try all these wonderful things that I had read about and learned about and so on. And then reality hits. And sometimes it’s not quite as exciting as what you had first thought it might be. My first class that I taught had five reading groups. And they ranged from two little boys in one group who were reading considerably below grade level, up to a group of eight to ten students, whose test scores indicated reading achievement at the high school level. K.B.: Wow. J.R.: So it was a whole range. K.B.: Yes. J.R.: So not only did I have the five reading groups to plan for every day, I also had 40 students in my class. K.B.: Did you really? J.R.: Yes. Twenty-eight boys and twelve girls. I would say that first year was a learning experience, every bit as much for them as it was for me. K.B.: But that is a large class. J.R.: It was. K.B.: Forty kids--my heavens. What were the highs? There must have been some highs in that first year experience. J.R.: I guess the highs would have to be looking at the students and working with them in a way that you knew they were moving forward, that they were learning, even though it was a heterogeneous group of students. You could look back and say, “Okay, when John started the year, we were working at this level, and at the end of the school year he had progressed far enough that he had made considerable progress. Pretty much the same as from the students who were struggling, to the students who were very, very talented. So that I think was probably what I was most proud of that year. Proud that I got some sleep at night! But not a whole lot of it! K.B.: Well, sure, and that they had made progress and you had survived. J.R.: That’s about it. K.B.: Which is probably not unusual for a first-year teacher? J.R.: Right. K.B.: Because every lesson plan is new. J.R.: Yes. And when you have high expectations for yourself, as well as high expectations for the kids, looking at a lesson plan that somebody else had written in a textbook was never quite good enough. So you had to put your own touch on it. And time management was a huge hurdle to get past. K.B.: That was going to be my next question to you. What did you think was the most difficult part of being a first-year teacher? J.R.: Oh, time management, without a doubt. When I was thinking about hurdles and what went on the first year, I’m surprised that classroom management didn’t come first to my mind, because that was a huge class. But it didn’t. We just seemed to work together well. I can’t say they were all perfect A’s and everything was like a “Leave It to Beaver” kind of classroom, because that certainly wasn’t it. But we just worked well together. The class and I clicked. And I think there are some classes that just work like that with the teacher more so than maybe some other ones. K.B.: Well, that’s a wonderful thing not to have to worry about classroom management. Because that usually does appear right at the top of the list. J.R.: My time management issues were more so in how do I plan for these five reading groups, and keep everybody excited about reading and interested and so on. And the same thing, because while you have the five reading classes, you also have all the other classes thrown in there. So just trying to stay up with the lessons and making them child-centered and exciting was a big hurdle. K.B.: Yes. And something you probably had to experience in order to sort of make modifications. You didn’t--you hadn’t done this before. J.R.: Oh no, not at all. K.B.: So this was, yeah, brand new. J.R.: Right, and having two of those five reading groups filled with children with serious reading difficulties--probably now they would be receiving special education services--but they did not at that time. So knowing how to approach them and how to help them was a real learning experience for me. K.B.: So it’s the end of your first year, and how are you feeling about it? J.R.: The end of the first year? K.B.: Uh huh. J.R.: Tired! And still excited, because I don’t think I’ve ever lost that idealism and optimism that I think is just part of me. So it’s kind of like, alright, I know I’ve made some mistakes. I know a lot of things that are not going to happen again, and that I won’t repeat. And next year is going to be a better year. K.B.: And was that true? J.R.: It was a smaller class to begin with. K.B.: That helps tremendously. J.R.: That was a help. It was back down to twenty-some; I don’t remember, but it was in the low twenties. And it was a good year. That year I had a group of students who were homogeneously grouped, and I had the below average readers, but it was a whole class of below average readers. And while they were certainly not homogenous in their needs, it became an easier task of modifying lessons for a less broad spectrum of abilities and skills. K.B.: Yes, sure. That would make it easier. So how long did you stay at Grange? How long did you teach fourth grade? J.R.: I stayed at Grange Elementary for three years and taught fourth grade all three years. Then I received a full fellowship to graduate school at the University of Connecticut. And I had an academic leave of absence for one year. Then I came back and I came back certified in special education and learned while I was at the University of Connecticut that while I was very interested in special ed. and that probably is a result of the students that I had worked with . . . K.B.: I’m sure! J.R.: . . . I was not cut out to be a full-time special educator. So I came back and at that time, Baltimore County was organizing students at the junior high school level in something called B and L classes--behavior and learning classes--for students who had classroom management, discipline problems, emotional problems, but were still in the classroom setting. I was interviewed, because I had that special education certification now, for one of those positions. And I remember thinking, “Please don’t let me get this position,” because I knew it was not right for me. And the principal with whom I had worked prior to going to graduate school, I don’t know how he did it, but he brought me back to Grange. K.B.: Well that was wonderful. J.R.: And I taught for three more years at Grange in grades four, five and six. K.B.: But that was a professional eye-opener. J.R.: It was. K.B.: And we don’t know until we try things. So you kind of knew that that was not for you. J.R.: No, but what did happen up at the University of Connecticut is I went through the program, I became a certified special education teacher, but the program had some electives to it. And I took three of the electives in the field of gifted and talented education. And there’s a professor there named Dr. Joe Renzulli who is nationally known, renowned in the field of gifted and talented education, and he was probably the most exciting and inspiring teacher I have ever had. And that brought me, very interested, into the field of gifted and talented. K.B.: So when then when you went back to Grange, did you have any opportunity to explore that further? Or were you primarily in an elementary classroom setting? J.R.: I had some opportunity. When I taught sixth grade my last year, the students were regrouped for math. And there happened to be a group of students in sixth grade at that time who on their--I don’t know--it was the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, or one of the achievement tests that was given--they had all scored at the 95th percentile or above in math. K.B.: I see. J.R.: So they were quite talented in math. The principal made the decision that all those students would come to me, and I became their math teacher in sixth grade math. So I worked with a very, very talented group of students that year and totally enjoyed it. But, as an aside, within this group of talented sixth graders, I had one child in there, his name was Nick, and he was a first grader. And he put all the other students to shame with his math ability! K.B.: Oh my heavens! J.R.: So that was a really unique teaching experience, working with this first grader who was very gifted in mathematics. K.B.: Judy, do you know what happened to him? Did you ever hear anything further about Nick? J.R.: No, I’ve even looked on the different web sites, Googled his name, and I can’t find it. I’ve always wondered. K.B.: Interesting. Yes. And at some point you become even more involved in gifted and talented programming by taking a position, I think, in the county, specifically for gifted and talented programs? J.R.: Yes. K.B.: And when does that happen? J.R.: When I was in my third year after graduate school, I was still at Grange teaching sixth grade that year. Baltimore County advertised for the position of elementary gifted and talented resource teacher. It was the first time that this position had ever been offered. Nobody had held it before. It was a brand new position. And there were four people to be hired for this. So I contacted Dr. Don Merryman, who was the coordinator of elementary education at that time, and asked to be interviewed for this position. I was interviewed, and I was one of the first four GT teachers in Baltimore County. K.B.: Wow! Wonderful. Yes. That must have been gratifying. J.R.: It was exciting times! Exciting and scary. K.B.: Un huh. Tell us a little bit more about that position. How long were you in it? J.R.: I was in the position for six years. And just to give you an example of the way it began, the four of us who were originally hired for that position and had never met before, reported to Stoneleigh Elementary on the first day of school when teachers are back, and we walked in, we’re directed to this empty classroom. We walked into the classroom, and in the classroom were four desks, four chairs, four letter openers, and four pens. And that was the start of the elementary gifted and talented program. K.B.: Oh, my heavens! J.R.: We had no supervision. We were not under any particular umbrella at the time. We were just given the task to just start the elementary GT program. So, starting from absolutely nothing when we first began, to working very hard, we ended up being a very talented group . . . good team, good teamwork over the six years. It grew to be an effective program in the county. K.B.: How nice! And what kinds of things did you do? First of all, I guess you had to get to know each other. J.R.: Yes. K.B.: You said you didn’t know each other before you started? J.R.: No. K.B.: But everybody was a teacher in the county going coming into that position? J.R.: Yes, everybody had elementary experience. I think most everybody was a classroom teacher except one lady was a reading specialist. And we came from . . . all four sections of the county were represented. We had to learn each other and learn each other’s styles and try to figure out what our role was, what our responsibilities were, because nothing existed. K.B.: Yes. J.R.: That first year was a tremendous year of, let’s see, learning the lessons the hard way. Made a lot of mistakes. None of us were familiar with the way Baltimore County worked. So we made some mistakes, and learned from the mistakes. And by the end of that first year, Dr. Mary Ellen Saterlie, who was the Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, assigned our team to the Elementary Office. So we became part of the Office of Elementary Education in Baltimore County. But it was a sort of wild eight or nine months, when you had four classroom teachers, who had never worked at the county level like that, trying to take this program and make something of it. K.B.: Well I think maybe that was the intent was just fresh minds . . . J.R.: Could be! K.B.: . . . without the burden of how Baltimore County Public Schools operated as any kind of deterrent or obstacle? J.R.: Could be. We got ourselves into some trouble. But it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed. K.B.: And what was their expectation for you to accomplish by the end of the year? I mean, were you designing curriculum? Were you putting together some kind of evaluation system for who gets to be identified as GT? Or were you working with kids directly? J.R.: Yes, to all of those! I think our first – after we got past the organizational woes . . . K.B.: Of course . . . J.R.: . . . then we had to define our role and responsibilities. And that was directly related to what kids are we talking about? Who exactly are the gifted and talented in elementary? Because an identification criteria had never been established. And that was one of the first responsibilities that I had, designing the identification criteria for the GT kids in elementary school. And then after you’ve identified these students, well, it’s kind of like a “so what?” situation. So now that you’ve got this group of students, what are you going to do about it? K.B.: Exactly. J.R.: Because by the nature of the GT program, you’re saying that the traditional program is not fulfilling their needs, so what are you going to do to make it better for them? And then that led into curriculum writing, curriculum adaptations, etc. We did a lot of administrative work as far as designing the criteria for who are the gifted and talented. And then designing curriculum in math and reading primarily for those kids, and then the job also entailed providing professional development to every elementary school on who are the gifted and talented, and how do you work with these kids that are in your classroom. Then it also evolved so that, in addition to the professional development, we would go around and teach the students who had been identified as gifted at the different schools all around the county. And in most schools, we taught small groups, would see the kids once or twice a week for like eight week sessions, like a mini-course we taught, which we also had to write. And so we got to all the schools in Baltimore County like that. K.B.: And how many elementary schools are we talking about? J.R.: I’m thinking somewhere around 120 there were at that time. There were a lot. K.B.: And you were somehow . . . So that’s, even with four people, that’s 30 schools per person. J.R.: And for some schools we were able to work with the Department of Transportation, and cluster them together, so schools that had a very low population of students who met the criteria, we would pull them together maybe from three schools and meet at one of the schools for an extended time. So that helped with the logistics. K.B.: Yes. I was going to say you could use all the help you could get, because that was an enormous task. J.R.: Yes! One of the things that I most enjoyed, well, in addition to the curriculum writing--that has been a pleasure of mine all the way through – but we were always on the lookout for opportunities for kids to be involved in enrichment activities. And one day, I remember I received an advertisement in the mail about a program called the “Olympics of the Mind” that was being held in Ohio. It sounded interesting, so I decided to go out there in the summer and see what it was all about. It was a very exciting, creative problem-solving program. So I brought it back, talked with the elementary office and got the go-ahead to bring it to Baltimore County. And then for the next 13 or 14 years, I worked as coordinator and in other capacities in getting that program going. So that was exciting. Because I don’t know if you’re familiar with that program or not . . . K.B.: Tell us a little bit about it. Well, in broad strokes. J.R.: Oh my. It’s a creative problem-solving program, where students work in teams of seven. The program was called the “Olympics of the Mind.” They were required to change their name to “Odyssey of the Mind;” because of some copyright infringement problems. But they would create long-term problems, and the students, as a team, would decide which one of these long-term problems they would attack and solve. And there was no right answer. It was up to interpretation and so on. The student teams would work and create a solution to this problem. Some of them might involve theatrical productions, some technical/engineering type of things. A variety of different kinds of problems. And they would choose one. Most of the students had an advisor or two that were teachers at the school buildings and would work after school on these problems for months. And then they would come together in a regional competition and compete against other students their age, who had selected the same problem. Then we had teams of judges who would assess according to pretty clear expectations. Then they would decide the top three teams from that particular problem; and the teams would go onto a state competition; then the same thing happened, and from the state, then you would go to the international competition. K.B.: Wow. J.R.: So I had an opportunity to work with students, to organize the competitions, and also to judge at the international competitions. That was an exciting time. K.B.: Absolutely. Now I guess other counties in the state were doing this as well, then? J.R.: Yes. It was a very large program for many years. K.B.: And how did we do? J.R.: “We” being Baltimore County? K.B.: Baltimore County and the State of Maryland. J.R.: Baltimore County had a number of state winners and a couple of the teams went on to become international winners. K.B.: Really! J.R.: Yes. The team from Kingsville Elementary, under coach Amy Denike, was there. She took her team to the international competition several times, and won several times. It was exciting. And the excitement came from seeing the students working together as a team, believing that they had worked well and had come up with a solution, seeing the parents there cheering them on, seeing the siblings there . . . It was just an exciting time and provided a lot of different kinds of learning activities for the students. It was good. K.B.: So, at some point you consider going into administration in addition to a program like this. What led you in that direction? J.R.: Well, administration was not a position that I actively pursued. I know there are some folks that go into teaching and say, “I want to be a principal or whatever.” But that was not me. At one point in my life I was asked to consider a position as an elementary supervisor, working in the Office of Elementary Ed. And I was expecting my son at the time, and I knew that the supervisory position required an awful lot of travel, and a very irregular schedule. And I thought with a newborn, I needed to know where I was going every day, and having some type of continuity in my life would be best for him. So I declined that opportunity. And I was just continuing with the GT position, and a number of folks that I had the greatest respect for in Baltimore County suggested that I take their leadership program, which was called “The Phases” at the time. And there were phase 1, 2 and 3. And so I did. And then two years later, I was assigned as an Assistant Principal at a school. K.B.: And you were ready for that, then? J.R.: I was ready for a change. I seem to work in six-year cycles. And I had been with the gifted and talented program for six years then, and I was ready for something different. K.B.: Yes. And so you became an Assistant Principal where? J.R.: At Bear Creek Elementary. Again, down in the Gray Manor/Bear Creek area of Baltimore County. I worked with the principal with whom I had worked at Grange. I was his Assistant Principal. And the school, Bear Creek, had been open for 30-some years, maybe 34 years, and I was the second Assistant Principal ever to be assigned there. K.B.: Oh my heavens! J.R.: So that was a very interesting position. I followed somebody who had been there since the school opened, 30-some years. K.B.: Wow. Difficult to do. J.R.: Interesting, yes. K.B.: I mean, that’s a hard transition for a school. J.R.: Yes. K.B.: To lose somebody who’s been in that job for seemingly forever. J.R.: Well, when I first took the job, I didn’t think it was going to last very long. Because my first summer I got myself into some serious difficulties. K.B.: Oops. J.R.: When you are a new Assistant Principal, I think the Principal is not quite sure, sometimes, how to get you started in the job. So the Principal sent me down to the book room, and told me to take a look at the books, and get rid of anything that was old and not being used anymore. Well, the book room was absolutely filled with books that had copyright dates from the 1950s in it. And you look at the science book, and it said, “Maybe one day, we will send a man to the moon.” So you were looking at things that were very, very, old. And so I made my stacks of books and went and asked the Principal, “What do I do with these?” because I didn’t know what to do with them. And he said, “Put them in the dumpster, because they’re antiquated. They are the wrong information and they’re not going to be good for anybody.” And so I did. And that was on a Friday. And I came into work on a Monday and had a telephone call from the area superintendent plus the area councilman asking why we were destroying school property and wasting taxpayer’s money. So, I thought my career as an Assistant School Principal was going to come to a very quick halt. K.B.: But it didn’t. J.R.: No, it didn’t. We got over it. K.B.: I was going to say . . . And somehow that got resolved. J.R.: Yes. K.B.: Did you get new books? J.R.: Yes. There were plenty of new books in there. But it was just a compilation of nothing ever being thrown out. K.B.: And now you knew why. J.R.: Yes. K.B.: At what cost you threw things out. My heavens! So, were you Assistant Principal in a couple of different places? J.R.: I was the Assistant Principal at Bear Creek for six years, again. And then I moved to Assistant Principal at Hawthorne Elementary and I was Assistant Principal there for five years. They transferred the principal to a school in January on the other side of town. And I was Acting Principal there for the remainder of that school year after he left, and then became the Principal at Hawthorne for four years. K.B.: You had done these courses, this program, to be qualified to become a principal? J.R.: Yes. The Phases. K.B.: And that’s sort of in-service in a manner of speaking? I mean, that’s not affiliated with a higher education institution or anything. J.R.: No. It was Baltimore County’s system for moving forward in the county and moving into an administrative position. So that’s training on the job. K.B.: Yes. And so you were, as you said, four years at Hawthorne? J.R.: Three and a half. K.B.: Three and a half. And what did you want to accomplish as a principal, going into that position? Especially, mid-year. J.R.: That was a difficult transition, mid-year. K.B.: Yes. J.R.: Because when people know you as the Assistant Principal, then you change position and your responsibilities change, and people relate to you in a different way than what they had. So that was not the easiest of transitions. One of the things that I was primarily concerned about going into the position was that we had a terrific number of students who, when tested in reading at the end of second grade, we found that a very large percentage – 80 to 85% of our students were reading, according to the test scores, at two or more years below grade level. K.B.: Good grief! J.R.: And I’m not so naive to think everybody’s going to be on grade level or above, but that was entirely too many, and it made me take a very serious look at what is going on with our reading program. And a group of teachers and I spent many hours together trying to figure out what was going on. And to make a long story short, what we hypothesized was that Hawthorne was a school with a great number of new teachers. It was not uncommon to have 17 to 20 non-tenured teachers at a time in this school. It was a challenging school. And at that time, the reading program that was being advocated was the Whole Language program. And I don’t think anybody had any particular trouble with the philosophy of Whole Language, and what it was all about, but asking a new teacher, who had very limited knowledge of reading instruction, to implement this program created some problems. And so I said, “Alright, what can we do for our students and for our teachers that will bring some structure to the reading program and fill in some gaps that we knew through diagnostic analysis were pretty common across the grade levels and with the students. So we took a risk, and saw one of the things that we knew was missing was any type of structured approach to word identification skills. And at that time we looked around and said, “Okay, what can we do?” And we looked at workbooks, the good old phonics workbooks and they were better than nothing, but they didn’t do the trick. And so we came in contact with the folks at Johns Hopkins University, who were working with the “Success for All” program and we worked very closely with them, and then brought their reading program for the beginning readers into the school, and saw our test scores turn around. We were very lucky to have diagnosed it correctly and help the students. So that was probably utmost on my mind. K.B.: And a wonderful accomplishment. J.R.: Didn’t happen quickly, but yes, we got there. K.B.: But, in partnership with your faculty. J.R.: Absolutely. K.B.: With them buying into this. J.R.: Yes. And we became a model school for that program and many, many schools from Baltimore County came to visit the reading program, because we learned that we were not alone with this concern. K.B.: Amazing. Wonderful. Absolutely. J.R.: It is good to see the students become readers. So that was due to the good work of an awful lot of people. K.B.: But, in part, to the very good work of a principal who said, “What’s wrong? Let’s diagnose it, and let’s fix it.” And just said, “We’re going to do it.” J.R.: Yes. We set our mind, set a goal, and just got there. K.B.: Just got there. Absolutely. Now at some point somebody gives you a phone call from Towson University and talks to you about possibly doing some work here. J.R.: Yes. That was Karen Schafer. K.B.: Uh huh. J.R.: Karen was the Director of the Center for Professional Practice. Karen had been my supervisor in the southeast area. So I’ve known Karen for a long time. And I was, at that time, Principal at Sussex Elementary. I had accomplished what I wanted to accomplish at that school. Sussex was the first school in Baltimore County that had to offer alternative school placements to students because of declining achievement scores from the sanctions from the Maryland State Department of Education. And when I first went there, I learned within a couple of weeks of being there, that this terrible cloud was over this school. We had to offer students that opportunity to go to a more effective school. K.B.: I see. Whoa! J.R.: Yes. So we worked together, over the years there, and turned the achievement around, through another lot of hard work and dedication, from a lot of people, and got the school going on an upward trend in achievement. And it was like, take a deep breath, okay, we’re on the right track. And then I started thinking, “Alright, I’m eligible to retire. Is this the end of it? The end of the road.” And that’s when I got the call from Karen. K.B.: I see. Well, I think this was going to be your future. You were just far too successful. You know, if you have a school with issues, call Judy Reber. J.R.: No, it’s not me. No, no. It’s not ‘call me.’ It’s just, let’s get everybody going and a shared responsibility for making change. K.B.: Yes. But you were doing this successfully with two schools, so I’m sure that that was part of the county’s thinking. J.R.: Well, I don’t know. I was just very pleased with our work together and the changes that happened in the school. K.B.: So, Karen gave you a call. J.R.: She did! K.B.: And she said, in essence? J.R.: She said, “Are you retiring?” And at that point I said, “I don’t know; what are you thinking about?” And she said that there was an opening in the MAT program for an elementary supervisor and would I be interested. So I came on campus, and met with the director, Debbie Piper, at the time, and thought that the course sounded interesting. The opportunity would be keeping me in the field that I really loved, because I loved professional development and working with teachers. So I retired from Baltimore County and came to work at Towson. K.B.: And what did you first do in that role when Debbie was the director? J.R.: I was hired as a lecturer and in that, I supervised student teachers--interns, we’re not student teachers anymore--interns in their PDS schools during their professional year, which is the fall and the spring semester in the MAT program. So I supervised them in the classrooms, and I also taught seminar classes both semesters. K.B.: And so you got to know the Master of Arts in Teaching program very quickly. J.R.: Yes. K.B.: Because you were instantly immersed in it. J.R.: Yes, I got to know the field part of it and the course part of it. I spent a lot of time trying to make the 797 course that’s in the fall very meaningful to students to help move them forward. Yeah, I got to know the part of MAT that happened out in the schools. K.B.: And what was in that fall, that 797 course? What were your goals with that course? You said you sort of wanted to make it more meaningful. J.R.: I thought the course needed to bring into play an understanding for the students of, “What makes for effective instruction?” What are the components of effective teaching, and put it in a way that it makes sense and put it in a way that they’re establishing the habits of the mind that when I go to plan a lesson, these are the things that I need to keep in mind, and it begins with the students. And then, after knowing the needs of the students, how do I take that knowledge, and look at the curriculum and the standards, and so on, and make it work, and assess and all the other components that are part of good instruction. So we wanted to bring some structure to the 797 course, so that instead of being a series of discrete topics, like “writing an objective,” “multiple intelligences,” “assessment,” instead of just hitting and missing, there was continuity to it. And so things would fit into a context that they would then be able to take with them for their entire teaching career. K.B.: And that course that’s in the one year and a summer program for full-time MAT students? J.R.: It’s for everybody. K.B.: It’s for everybody. And are they in schools while they’re taking that? J.R.: They are. So the topics that you talk about in seminar are put into practice when they’re in their schools. Depending on the program, the interns are in schools either one or two days a week. Our professional year only runs fall to spring. So this is fall semester. K.B.: So they need to get into schools early. J.R.: Right, they’re in there when teachers come back. K.B.: Yes. J.R.: Yes. K.B.: Which is also a wonderful advantage? J.R.: Absolutely. We tell them it’s the first time they will ever have the opportunity to watch what goes on in the opening of the school, but not be held responsible for it when the kids walk in. It’s a good learning experience. K.B.: Absolutely, an important piece, which I think we started doing with our other programs as well, initial certs. Which just amazes me that we didn’t always do that? It just seems so obvious. J.R.: And the students are always so amazed at what goes into preparing a classroom for opening day. So now they’ve had a chance to experience it. K.B.: Absolutely. And so were you also involved in supervising the interns, supervising student teachers in the spring semester? J.R.: Yes. I taught the 798 seminar and supervised their full-time internships. K.B.: I see. And this was for elementary. J.R.: And early childhood. K.B.: Oh, and early childhood. So what kinds of experiences are they having once they move into that student teaching semester? Do they now have two experiences at different grade levels? Or . . . J.R.: You’re asking a good question, because the MAT program is the pathway to initial certification for early childhood, elementary, all of secondary and special education. K.B.: Oh my heavens! J.R.: So every one of those programs has a slightly different twist on it. K.B.: I see. J.R.: So if I speak to elementary and early childhood, yes, they’re in two different placements. K.B.: I see. And that brings us, I suppose, to another point that ought to be made, and leads us to a further discussion of MAT, which is that Debbie takes a position in Baltimore County, and the program is in need of a new director. And somebody says, “Judy, you’re the obvious choice.” Yeah. And that happened after you had been teaching in the program for how long? J.R.: It was my fourth year, I believe. K.B.: Uh huh. And you just couldn’t say “no.” J.R.: Let’s just say Debbie was pretty persuasive. Her departure from Towson, I think, was not expected. And when she accepted the new position, there was very little turnaround time to go and recruit somebody. And it was in December, when this all happened. And so they asked if I would be willing to take on the responsibilities of director. And I thought they were asking me to do it until the end of the school year, like in May, the end of the semester. Because I tend to say, “Well, okay, I can do this for, like, six months.” And that’s five years ago. K.B.: Which, yes, but you always do things so well. J.R.: Well, I have very good feelings about MAT. It’s a challenging program, and we have very high expectations for our students, but our students are, for the most part, totally dedicated to becoming the best teachers that they can. Our students are ones who make a deliberate choice to come back to school and get certified as a teacher. It’s not like, “I’m in undergraduate school. What will I do? Oh, maybe I’ll try teaching.” These folks have all experienced life outside of the college, for the most part, not everybody. And they are deliberate in wanting to become a teacher, and will put forth the effort and the time and all the other good things that are required to reach that goal. K.B.: Well you’ve already told us the breadth of programs that MAT involves now. Could you tell us a little bit – I’m intrigued by the nature of the students. So what kinds of backgrounds--when you say they’ve been out there in the world doing something else, and now they have decided at some point to became teachers--what kinds of backgrounds do they come with? J.R.: They come with a great variety of backgrounds. Over the years, I look for trends and things that are happening. One group of students that seems to be the growing group right now, are those that have just finished their undergraduate degrees in some field, and look to the MAT as a fifth year to get their teaching certification. So we have a growing number of students that are coming to MAT for that purpose. Maybe they were an undergraduate English major, or a social studies major, and so they’ve decided that they want to teach, but haven’t gone the secondary education route as an undergraduate student, and come to MAT and take our program to get their initial certification. K.B.: Uh huh. J.R.: That’s one group of students. Another group of students are those that have been out in the real world for, oh, I’ll guess I’ll say five to eight years, and have become disenchanted with what they were doing. K.B.: Okay. J.R.: And these are my favorite students. I shouldn’t say that, but these are, a lot of times, my favorite students, because they’ll come to me and they’ll say, “You know, I always wanted to be a teacher, but so-and-so said, “Don’t go into teaching, it doesn’t pay enough” or something like that, so they followed some other career path, and it’s never been the right thing for them. So they tell me that they decided to come back and do what they’ve always wanted to do. That’s an exciting group to work with also. K.B.: That is. And that’s a major commitment. I mean, these are people who are going to give up whatever they’re doing and the salary associated with it, to spend a bunch of money for a year to become a teacher. J.R.: Absolutely. And I think that’s part of the reason that we have such great students because this is a deliberate decision on their part, and it’s got a lot of ramifications for those who have families, or even if you’re self-supporting. So they’ve made a commitment, and they want to do well. The third group of students that we have in MAT are ones that are actual career-changers or possibly retiring people who want to come back and teach. We have had people who are engineers, lawyers, we have had a number of lawyers, just about every branch of the federal government that you can think of, have come and they have just said, “I want a change.” And so they’ve come to teaching. The other group would be the folks, women mainly, who graduated from college, got married, had their children, have brought their children through elementary school and they’re now into middle school or high school, have been PTA mothers, substitute teachers and have found that they really liked the school setting and they want to became teachers. So that’s an overview that we have people from many, many different backgrounds coming into the program. K.B.: Wow. Without going through all the curriculum for the program, what do you think makes MAT so successful? What are the sort of, shall I say, the essential elements? J.R.: I don’t know if I can pin it down to a particular element. I think, to go back to what I’ve just said, I think it is the dedication and commitment on the part of the students that is a big part of it. A very big part of it. I think the faculty who have been involved with the MAT program have set very high expectations for our students, whether it is in the coursework or whether it is in the field experiences, communicate these expectations very clearly to the students, but then also work very hard with the students to help them reach the expectations. And I think it’s that commitment from everybody, the teamwork that I see from those of us who work in the administrative end of MAT here at the College of Ed. and the instructors that come from every department in the College of Education. We have instructors that represent the Department of Elementary Ed., Early Childhood, Instructional Technology, Secondary Education, I know I’m leaving off somebody . . . K.B.: Special Ed. J.R.: Oh, of course, Special Ed. We have instructors from all those departments teaching our MAT students. And then we have an outstanding group of supervisors that help students make that transition from being a student to a teacher, which is no easy task. K.B.: And I would think many of those folks have made that transition themselves because they’ve been in schools initially as teachers. So they know the difficulty of that transition. J.R.: Yes. So I think the people. And then you have to look at the program as a whole MAT team with lots of members, and each member brings their own strength, but all pursuing a common goal. So, it’s one of the reasons that I think we’ve been successful. Then there’s more detailed things that we work with, like bringing continuity to the coursework. One of the things that we’ve worked very hard in lately is bringing an understanding of teaching diverse populations. We start from the beginning course, EDUC 730, which is like an introductory course to teaching. The MAT students get introduced to the students that they will meet in the classroom, and all the different characteristics and diversity that they will bring. Then they move on to EDUC 731, which is Curriculum and Assessment, and they start saying, “Well, these students are in the classroom. What do I do about it?” So they have a more theoretical framework of “I have a child who is an English Language Learner; what are the strategies that I can incorporate into my teaching that will help the student be a successful learner?” And “I’m working in a school that has a very high Title I or free and reduced lunch population. What are some of the implications of these students coming from a more impoverished background that are going to impact my teaching?” So all that rolls into a theoretical practice in 731, Curriculum and Assessment. Then they moved on to EDUC 797, where they take that theoretical practice and now they’re in a classroom, and they have to make it work. So bringing that continuity has been a couple year’s work. But we’re getting good results, so that’s good. K.B.: Well that was another question I was going to ask. Your students exit the program with a Master’s degree. So that would suggest that any school system that wants to hire them is going to have to pay a little bit more for them than they would for somebody coming out of an undergraduate initial certification program. J.R.: With the current salary rate, or salary scales that are in place now, that’s correct. K.B.: But that’s changing. J.R.: Yes. That sounds like it’s going to be changing. But it doesn’t seem to be an obstacle or work to the detriment of the MAT students. We have a pretty successful hire rate of at least 90% of our students getting jobs each year. K.B.: Which says something about the program? J.R.: Well it says something about a lot of things, yes. K.B.: But it does say that school systems say they are – to be as sort of crass as you can be about it, they are worth the money. J.R.: Yes, we hope so. Yes. K.B.: Well, apparently we know so, with that kind of success rate in terms of placement. Uh huh. So this program works well. J.R.: It has, yes. Right now we’re under a period of slightly declining enrollment, and I think that’s directly affected by the information that is out there that teaching jobs are very hard to come by. That’s been in place for a number of years now. And I think it affects people who make that deliberate decision to put all that money into a program. They want to know that there is a possibility of a job out there. K.B.: Yes, a good possibility. J.R.: A good possibility, yes. So right now, we’re under a slight decline in enrollment, but I think when the retirement starts kicking in that all the school systems are predicting is going to happen, I think we’re going to be able to come back up. K.B.: Well, and there’s been a suggestion that that retirement rush has been delayed by the economy. J.R.: Right. K.B.: And now that the economy is getting better, that also might work against MAT students . . . J.R.: It could, uh huh. K.B.: . . . coming in, because they are finding something else outside of teaching. So you’ve got a lot of things that are. . . J.R.: We juggle a lot of different things, there. K.B.: Exactly. . . that are affecting enrollments. J.R.: Yes. But we’re very proud of the students that are out there representing the MAT, and they are all over the place. K.B.: And they are very proud of being graduates of the program, too. And that is apparent from talking with them. J.R.: That’s good to hear! Yes! K.B.: It is! True. Judy, what have we forgotten? What kinds of things, I’m looking at the list of questions, and I’m thinking, other than that last question that we always save to the end, is there anything about your own career, your involvement here at Towson? Anything that I haven’t asked that you would regret not talking about? J.R.: I can’t think of anything specific. You’ve been pretty comprehensive. I guess just thinking and if the audience is someone who is new to the field of teaching, I think one of the things that you’ve got to just keep in your mind all the time, that is, it’s okay to be a risk-taker. Because in my professional career, the best things have come about by taking a risk whether it’s personal things or whether it has to do with helping students be successful. K.B.: That’s a good piece of advice. J.R.: You don’t always have to follow the status quo. K.B.: Yes. Well then, let me ask you that last question, which is simply: “Given your long professional career in education, what wisdom would you share, advice would you give, to individuals who are considering a teaching career.” J.R.: I guess the first one is you need to always keep in mind that teaching’s a way of life. I know other people have probably said this, but it is a way of life. It impacts everything you do. You’re not going to be able to leave school at the end of the day, or leave school at the end of June, and tuck it away for two or three months, and then come back, because it’s part of your life, whether you’re walking down a grocery aisle and doing your shopping, whether you’re going on vacation, whether you’re reading a book, watching a television show. Teaching is always part of your life, and there’s no getting away from it. And that’s okay! But you have to realize that. It’s not a job that you can separate. It is just part of your life. So just know that going into it. And also know that you need to be prepared for quite a range of emotions when you’re in the teaching profession. You’ve got to be excited about the highs that come along when you’ve been working with a group of students, and they’ve been struggling, and they finally get it, the highs, but then desperation that comes, could be the next day, when you think, “Why on earth did I choose this profession?” And I think you always have to believe that, in the end, you have the power to make a difference in the lives of the students. And if you keep that belief in your mind, then you’re going to be a successful teacher. K.B.: Good wisdom. Thank you so much for doing this. J.R.: You’re welcome. K.B.: This has been wonderful.