Ardythe Woerly

I’ve been remiss in posting group member bios and apologize. Here is one from Ardythe. Her description of her situation in central Illinois is powerful, and one can hear in her comments in our group so far and in the following words that she is going to be successful in that situation. The lower levels will be great and there will be challenges with kids at upper levels trained in other ways, but we can talk about that on a daily basis here. I love the honesty here. Honesty is very powerful. And, Ardythe, I lived in Champaign for awhile on my own long journey – that is real America there. What town are you in?
Ben,
I am very much a novice at TPRS. I never intended to be a high school Spanish teacher and didn’t even take Spanish in high school (a secret that I have kept from all of my classes). My teaching career began in a fifth grade classroom in Austin, Texas the year before court ordered busing. After five years I switched careers (loved the students — was frustrated by policies that did not help the neediest students) and joined the corporate world.
The twists and turns of life took me from central Texas to central Illinois and from the corporate world to a high school Spanish classroom in a rural school district, at LeRoy High School in LeRoy, Illinois. My first year teaching Spanish 1-4 brought me a group of seniors who hated Spanish with a passion — only taking the class for college and because it was the only language offered. The other levels hated it slightly less. Almost every textbook was defaced, as were the desks, with vulgar comments about the language/class. Since then, I have been on a quest to win the “hearts and minds” of the students at this school.
So here I am past fifty, fat, and gray haired, feeling like this semester was student teaching and next year will be my real, first year of teaching as I begin the year with TPRS at all levels. I’m so thankful that my journey brought me here and grateful to the blog.
Ardythe Woerly