Professional Biography - Deborah White

I knew I wanted to be a teacher at a very young age.  I wanted to teach children to read.  When I was young, I attended a Catholic school.  Learning to read was easy for me, but I remember bringing home lessons for homework.  Friends in the neighborhood used to come over to borrow those lessons for their own children who were not learning to read with the instruction they were getting in their own schools.  I realized then just how important learning to read was.

In my first teaching job, I taught a third and fourth grade combination class.  My principal required me to treat each grade separately and teach exactly as the textbooks suggested, and I was so frustrated with the teaching of reading and mathematics.  I had children in fourth grade that could not do the fourth grade assignments.  It was an open design school, so I couldn't just close my door and do what I felt I needed to do, but I became adept at adapting curriculum and teaching methods while looking like I was doing what I was "supposed" to.

When I moved to Oregon, I was thrilled to get a teaching job at Campus Elementary in Monmouth.  It was the lab school for OCE (Oregon College of Education) and we had multiple student teachers and undergraduate students in our classrooms each term.  We were free to develop curriculum and techniques that best fit our students.  I was able to decide just what I really believed about teaching.  It was then that I discovered Math Their Way and language experience techniques, which were mind boggling for me.  I trained Central School District in Math Their Way, and we implemented it district-wide.  I then began to work for the Math Learning Center and colleges and universities and traveled around Oregon to teach Math their Way classes and also developed a class for intermediate teachers that carried out the theme of developing concepts with manipulatives.  I felt good about working with teachers, as I felt that I was impacting so may children in a positive way by providing their teachers with understandings and strategies that would help children learn.  As time went on, I helped develop mathematics and science manipulative kits for all elementary classroom teachers in Central, some of which are still in use today.

When I moved to Dallas School District, I was fortunate to take Reading Recovery Training.  Having my own children had broadened my ideas on how reading develops, and the training was exciting.  It gave me a deeper understanding of how to help all children learn to read.   I then was able to take my understandings and share them with my colleagues around the state.

In my latest role as a Title I teacher I have the opportunity to work with children who are struggling with mathematics and reading.  I enjoy finding a method or strategy that will "click" for each student, to help him succeed.  I also have the opportunity to act as a resource for the teachers in my building, and I enjoy helping them also.

I feel that my greatest contributions in education have been two-fold.  I have taught many children to be readers and to view themselves as learners.  That has been my greatest joy.  I have also helped hundreds of teachers be more effective in their teaching of mathematics and reading, so I have indirectly helped many other children learn.  I feel good about that.