While raising a child and studying science, history and economics, Marilynn took a job with emotionally challenged children. She switched her studies to psychology and immediately began diagnosing everyone, a practice not particularly appreciated by friends and family. Luckily, the fates intervened and, while helping in her son's preschool, she became involved in the start-up of NCCL. Her grandmother's prophesy was fulfilled.
Marilynn graduated from the University of Delaware with a Bachelor's of Science in Education with Honors. She taught in and directed the Reading Study center at the University of Delaware for four years. Currently, in addition to teaching at NCCL, she is an instructor for Kathy Richardson and Associates working to help teachers improve math education.
Her passions include, in alphabetical order, family, gardening, mathematics, reading, science, teaching and thinking. She repeatedly thanks her grandmother for knowing what work would make her happy.
Newsletter: Have you been at NCCL a long time? Were you one the founding members?
Marilynn: Yes, I have a son who was in that first kindergarten class. What happened was, he was going to nursery school at the Cooperative Preschool and his teacher got ill. They needed to replace her and somebody contacted Ann. She said, I'll be glad to finish out this year for you, but I really can't commit to next year because I want to start an elementary school. This was 1970. I was still finishing up my degree.
Newsletter: A degree in education?
Marilynn: It was an undergraduate degree in special education. By the time I graduated with my undergraduate degree I had switched majors several times. I had started out in pre-med and then got married and had a kid, and then when I went back, it didn't seem like that was going to be a possible thing to do. So then I took a lot of history and a lot of economics and was thinking about doing something in that field. And then finally, this was after I don't know how many credits and how many years, I decided I had to come out with something. At that point I was working with emotionally disturbed kids. My first husband and I were working in a residential treatment center. We lived with the kids 24 hours a day, with our child, too. I began to get fascinated with psychology and kids who learn differently, so I focused on abnormal psychology and children, and child development. It was at that point that I was involved with starting the school.
Newsletter: Now you and Ray are both at the school and you have a daughter here. How much do you take the school home with you?
Marilynn: I think we probably do it more than other families of the staff. We do sometimes have to say on a Friday night it's a no school weekend.
Newsletter: How is that different now than it was at the beginning? It must have been very all encompassing then, too, but in a different way.
Marilynn: At the beginning, the members of the staff were getting to know each other, and that was a huge part of it. We needed to work very, very hard to get a building together, so those years were definitely many more hours of pure physical labor. Many of us stayed for quite a few years. Up until eight years ago, there really had been very little turnover. So we coasted on several years there where we didn't do as much because we knew each other very well and we had hammered out a philosophy and we were exhausted. We went through a period about fifteen years into the school where we became institutionalized and many things started running more automatically. Now I think we're in a period of looking at whether we are too institutionalized, especially with the new teachers coming in. We think about the legacy we want to pass on. We don't necessarily want it to be that we've really answered all the questions and there's a routine way of doing everything.
Newsletter: How long have you taught group 3?
Marilynn: Seven years.
Newsletter: What's unique about that age group?
Marilynn: You can go into more depth with them and yet they haven't, for the most part, turned that corner where they are starting to pull away from adults and feeling like they need to separate themselves from you. At this age if you say we're going to study about fractals today, they say, "Oh yes, let's do that!"
Newsletter: What are a couple of the most important things the kids learn in those couple of years.
Marilynn: Before the kids come to us, they are often in the situation where they will play with anybody, they are happy to be with anybody, within limits. And then, in that transition between fourth and fifth grade you see them begin to branch out a little bit more. They want to take some independent stands. Maybe kids that have played together from the time they were three and four years old, who are almost inseparable, start realizing they don't have certain things in common anymore. They still might dearly love each other, but they start seeking out other people to fill in some of the things they are very interested in that maybe their friend isn't so interested in. They start developing a sense of interests that are coming internally rather than group determined. So, the teacher of that age group needs to help the children sort that out, how one deals with the loss sometimes. The teacher has to help them give voice to their independent thoughts that they have and know they're not betraying people if they do that. Academically we see kids moving from that very concrete stage to the abstract. They learn to write a summary of a book, which in some ways is really difficult. How to state and opinion and support it. In mathematics, its place value, place value, place value. It's the understanding of out base ten system and the powers of ten and what that means. It's how to deal with fractions, decimals and percents. This is when they really start to understand a time line in history. In science, it's a dramatic change. As they get to fourth and fifth grade they start to be able to take data and learn from it.
Newsletter: Can you characterize your personality as a teacher and how it meshes with or contrasts with Sean's, or if it has changed over time?
Marilynn: It has mellowed over time. People would say I don't suffer fools gladly. I've definitely gotten better about that. I'm somewhat of a sarcastic person and I kid around with the kids a lot, and in that way teaching the older kids has been a bit easier because they can understand that more. I liked to have fun with the kids. I'm definitely a very open, energetic type teacher. Sean and I mesh well. He's very active and he's done a lot of physical stuff with the kids, but he's lower key and that's a good balance. He thinks carefully about issues. I'm more apt to rush right in. I've learned to slow down some.