That’s what Highlights learned when we sat down for a roundtable discussion with this year’s honorees: Chris Parsons (Grade 4, Lower School), Alice Ballard (formally Munn, Middle School art), and Nancy White (IB Diploma Coordinator and English instructor, Upper School). Surprisingly, not one of them started out with career ambitions to become a teacher, but each attested to becoming quickly “hooked” once given the opportunity to work with young people in the classroom. And although among them they count eight decades of teaching experience at all levels, all three spoke with the fervor of a first-year teacher about their impassioned commitment to students, to teaching, and to learning that continues to this day.

Below we include excerpts from our conversation; brief profiles of each master teacher also accompany this article.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU AS A TEACHER?

Chris: It’s such fun to be with children. They are such a pleasure. They inspire me every day.
Nancy: When a student who has graduated comes back and talks about how grateful he or she is for the education received here, I feel proud to have been a small part of that experience. And I have heard that gratitude expressed more often at CCES than at any other school where I have taught. It’s also very gratifying to see the growth our students experience when they accomplish something they weren’t sure they could pull off, such as their Senior Thesis or Extended Essay. It gives them such confidence.

Alice: Seeing the growth of my students is very inspiring. Several years ago I offered an art elective course on making teapots. I had one boy in the class, Kyle Schumaker ’04. Last summer I taught a ceramic class at the Penland School in North Carolina, and Kyle was one of two male students in the class! He is now studying industrial design. It’s great to be able to see the effect you have had on students’ lives.

WHAT'S SPECIAL ABOUT TEACHING AT CCES?

Chris: The greatest thing about this school is that the children love to learn. Our children are really happy here, our parents value education, and they teach their children to value education.

Nancy: I’m very pleased with the way the school has expanded its opportunities for children of all interests and intellectual levels. Our students enjoy an incredible diversity of curricular choices that are not available even at schools that are far larger than ours.

Alice: The addition of the electives period in the Middle School has also been a wonderful opportunity for kids who “want a little bit more,” and I love working with these students.


YOU HAVE ALL TAUGHT AT CCES FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS: NANCY AND ALICE FOR 10 YEARS AND CHRIS FOR 18. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS YOUR GREATEST CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCHOOL?

Chris: It’s my relationship with my students. I tell my students the first day of school that they are allowed to call me at home. A few years ago I had a student who called me every night. Some days I feel more like a counselor than a teacher. But how can you teach a child if all he can think about is that his dog died that day? I just feel I have to teach the whole child.

Alice: One of my greatest strengths is that I have this other life as an artist. I have worked hard at creating a schedule that allows me to be what I am teaching. I also love to learn new things as an artist about cultures, to travel the world, and to be able to share what I have learned with my students.

Nancy: One of the goals I’ve always upheld for my students is that they become lifelong learners with a continual curiosity about the world. I model this by trying to learn something new every single day and sharing it with them, whether it is a new word I had to look up in the dictionary, or some new fact I picked up from my reading. In my years here I have seen a change in our students’ willingness to expand their horizons, to ask questions, to think about things rather than spitting out information like little robots. I hope I have had a little bit to do with this. Of course, I am also proud of the IB program. I have been involved with IB since I moved to South Carolina in 1987.

Chris: When we first introduced IB and the inquiry method, our students did not know how to ask questions. They didn’t know what they wanted to know. Now they start asking questions and becoming active participants in their learning in primer and by the time they come up to fourth grade, they are full of good questions.

Alice: We are seeing this in the Middle School too—sometimes they come loaded with almost too many questions!


HOW DO YOU INCORPORATE AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE INTO YOUR CLASSES?

Nancy: Early in my marriage I had the opportunity to live overseas in São Paulo, Brazil. It’s where our two children were born. I went there with the attitude that I was going to learn everything I could about the culture and the Portuguese language. But while I was there I also encountered the cultural arrogance of “the Ugly American,” and I was embarrassed to see that there was truth in the stereotype. I want my students to be open to new cultural experiences and languages.

Alice: When I was teaching Lower School art at Charlotte Country Day School, I had the opportunity to travel to India for three weeks with a group of 15 educators to study art, religion, and archaeology. When I came back, I initiated a program at the Lower School where we studied one major culture a year, integrating it throughout the curriculum. This past year at CCES I had the opportunity to bring Chinese artist Ling Yun to CCES for artist residencies in all three divisions. This opened up many new possibilities for our students to learn about Chinese art and culture.

Chris: My father was born in Switzerland, and my mother was born in England. We traveled a lot as a family to Europe to visit relatives. One of the things I try to impress on my students is that in Europe people do a much better job of conserving and recycling and that the rest of the world does not look fondly on Americans because we use so much of the world’s resources. I usually enlist my German students to explain what their families do to recycle in Germany.

WHAT DOES BEING A ROLE MODELS MEAN TO YOU?

Chris: I tell my students all the time that they must learn to treat everyone with respect. I want them to honor, not just "tolerate" others, and to truly respect the differences of others. This is what I try to model in my classroom and my life.

Alice: I try to reach into myself and pull out those creative aspects of myself so that I can help each child to be a creative person and to have a great love of nature and the earth.

Nancy: My primary role is to be here for the students. I discourage students from gossiping behind others’ backs. I tell them to think about what they say before they say it. And I don’t engage in gossip myself, which may be why I am often the last person to hear what’s going on!

Brief profiles of each teacher can be accessed by clicking on the additional links above.