3 minute read
Be Bold
Teacher’s Aid
Cornelius author pens insightful new book for educators
BY: » Karel Bond Lucander PHOTOGRAPHY BY: » Lisa Crates
Retired educator Colleen Thrailkill spent more than 35 years teaching elementary school.
Life is full of teachable moments, and for an educator, those moments can be carried into the classroom. Colleen Thrailkill’s joy and passion for teaching motivated her to write The Value of Rotting Pumpkins: The Art of Teaching Elementary School. Her 211-page “guide to being a creative and an effective teacher” is packed with curriculum ideas, teaching philosophy and practical strategies for navigating teacher life. She explores how to take advantage of those teachable moments, meet the needs of every learner, and bring real-world problem solving into the classroom. Her book helps educators interact with administrators, conduct parent-teacher conferences, organize competitions and clubs, support gender equity in the classroom, teach reading and math and much more.
Extensive teaching resources
She began writing her book last April, as COVID-19 was shutting everything down. She wrote eight pages a day and likens the process to working on a doctoral dissertation. Thrailkill began teaching in 1974 and received her Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in 1999. She finished her book last fall and self-published through Archway.
“The easy part was the funny and touching teacher stories I carried in my memories for years—spilling paint on a group of five kids, having a child tell me he’d received a “great pair of knees” for Christmas (turned out to be a Great Pyrenees puppy) and learning that the parent of a student was dying of cancer,” says Thrailkill. “As I wrote the book, I made a careful effort to document every teaching resource I mentioned so the
book has an extensive reference section.”
And what about those rotting pumpkins?
“I believe that the best teachers use real-world experiences to help their students learn,” she says. “Chapter 18 recounts the story of when my class put its Halloween pumpkin into a sealed terrarium, resting on a layer of soil. We watched it rot over the course of several months and then buried several other items to see what would happen to them. The big takeaway was that pumpkins and banana peels will decay until there’s nothing left; plastic water bottles and Styrofoam cups will not, hopefully a valuable lesson that my students carried with them into their futures.”
Working as gifted and talented resource teacher
Thrailkill lived in Florida and taught elementary school for decades while raising three sons with her husband, Wayne. They moved to Cornelius in 1998, and she worked in several area schools as a resource teacher for elementary-level gifted and talented students until retiring in 2010. Now, her favorite activity is spending time with their four grandchildren.
Thrailkill is whip-smart and funny with a quiet demeanor. She taught my own children at Davidson Elementary and is a shining example of what her book helps others to be: A great teacher. Her book is available at Main Street Books, Barnes & Noble, Archway Publishing and Amazon.
Sage Advice for Teachers
Some of Colleen Thrailkill’s advice, culled from “wise, old and experienced teachers,” includes:
• Every child deserves a chance for a fresh start every school year.
• Grade papers with a green pen. Green is so much more appealing than red.
• Read aloud to your students, no matter what their ages are.
Plan It.
Dream It. Plan It. Pursue It. SM
