Teacher’s Corner

Why I'm a teacher • What I believe about teaching • Resource info
Meet me •  Meet my husband • Meet my daughter • Meet my cat • Meet my sister
• Meet the parent • Summer Vacation 2007

Mrs. Grubb’s Homeroom

Why I’m a teacher

My mom says I've been teaching ever since I was a little girl.  I would gather all of the neighborhood kids around and give them worksheets, tests, and writing assignments.  I would call roll and grade papers.  So I guess you could say that teaching is in my blood!         As I worked on my master's degree, I taught freshman composition.  At the end of the semester, my students would tell me that they always thought they couldn't write, or they always hated English, or they thought they couldn't understand English, but after my class, they knew that they could.

       That was the typical response of freshmen at the end of Freshman English, but I started thinking, "These people should have felt good about their abilities in English long before now."  That's what made me think I should teach 8th grade.  I wanted to see if I could help students feel better about their abilities to read and write and think from a much earlier age.

What I believe about teaching

I believe it is a teacher's job to guide a child, not to answer every question, but to help students find their own answers.         In my classroom, I create a safe place to search for those answers, encouraging my students to debate with one another.  To debate, they must offer evidence to prove their points, and they must truly LISTEN to the evidence offered on the other side.        No one is ridiculed for being wrong.  In fact, most of my questions have more than one right answer, so usually, students can't be "wrong."        I believe that we learn from our mistakes, that we don't learn from hearing the right answer given to us.  The learning happens in our struggle to find an answer for ourselves.

Meet me

I was born and raised in Tulsa...until I was in sixth grade.  That's when my family moved to B.A.  Please don't hold it against me: I was ten years old. I didn't have any control over where we moved!  When I graduated from Broken Arrow in 1984 (you can do the math) the new high school campus was still under construction.   I went to high school in the building which is now North Intermediate.        I attended OU--Sooner born and Sooner bred--and earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Language Arts Education.  Then I moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico (No, I didn't have to have a passport to move to NEW Mexico.) where I attended New Mexico State University.  I received my Master of Arts degree in English then remained in the state to teach for a year.

        I moved home to Tulsa and applied to lots of school districts in the area.  For some reason--maybe my BA High School diploma--I didn't apply at Union. I got several offers, but most appealing was the offer to return to B.A. and teach at my alma mater.  I taught 8th grade English in Broken Arrow from '93 to '05, when I made the switch to Union.
 

I love to drive my car at the race track (let’s just keep that between you and me!) but now that I have a daughter, I drive at Hallett less often than I used to.  I still get to drive a couple of times a year, and that’s plenty for now.  Hallett is a challenging track to drive on because it’s not just four left turns.  In 1.8 miles of track, there are 11 turns!  If that made sense to you, then you probably guessed that driving my husband's little Miata at Hallett is NOT about speed.  There’s not any room for that.  Instead, I practice getting the right line into a turn, keeping my momentum and bringing my lap times down.        Well, I could go on, but I’ve probably bored you enough with car talk.  We can talk more about it at school sometime if you're interested.

Meet my husband

This is Sean.  My mother met him on a plane and introduced us to each other in 1993.  She knew we’d get along, but I don’t think she knew how well we would get along!  We became best friends and knew each other for several years before we even started dating.  A couple of years after that, we got married in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  (That’s me in the yellow dress.)         We like to go camping and hang out on our deck with friends.  Sean likes to work on his vintage Porsche and race his Mazda Miata. He also makes furniture.  A few years ago, he helped a neighbor rebuild her house because a contractor had taken her money and left her house a wreck!

       He runs his own company called iZoom Graphics.  He’s a graphic artist, and he makes signs, takes pictures, and builds a thing called a TireTail.  He likes driving, too, of course, and he’s very good at it.  He wins lots of awards in his driving clubs, and he is an instructor at track events around the country.

Meet my daughter

This is Emma.  (Click here for more pictures.)  Emma was born on September 15, 2002, and I don't know what I ever did without her.  She is a little comedian and makes us laugh all the time.       Emma loves to read books and work puzzles...especially if they have to do with fairies or princesses or the color pink. She loves to be tossed around in the air or swung by her ankles, but she's so big, we can't really do that anymore.  We often go to the zoo or the library or to Kiddie Park in Bartlesville. Emma has started to discover bigger roller coasters.  She figures out very quickly what she is not supposed to get into and that’s what she tries to get into. This was true when she was little and continues to be true as she grows up.

Top
 
 
 
 
 

Meet my cat

Freida joined our family late last summer, just before school started. We adopted her from a neighbor who could no longer keep her. She was still young, and we happened to adopt another little kitten at the same time. His name was Barley. They were together all day long, inseparable, and they were never very far away from home. Unfortunately, at the end of spring break last year, Barley was hit by a car, so now, as Emma will tell you, "I only have one cat left." We're looking for a new tiny cat to be a good companion for Freida. She just seems so sad and lonely without her buddy, so we're going to try this again.     Emma loves to play with the cats. One day, she showed them a block that she found. On the block was the letter C and a picture of a cat. She told them, "This is you guys." Then she dragged her finger across the word, as she has seen us do when we're reading to her, and very slowly, she said, "CAAAAAAT."

 

Meet my sister

Susan, otherwise known as "Too Done," is my younger sister.  Of course, she's a little older than she looks in this picture, but she'll be quick to point out that she is still younger than I am.         She has lived in Hawaii and decided she liked it better right here.  She and I moved back to Tulsa in the same year.         She earned her degree in accounting at OSU-Tulsa, when it was called by some other name.  She is a property accountant for Schusterman Family Interests.  She loves to crunch numbers, but mostly she loves her cocker spaniels.         Emma loves her Aunt Susan.

Meet the parents

This is my mom, Gail, the bravest, most wonderful woman in the world! She's my hero. She raised my sister and me all by herself in a time when few people were doing it. That took a lot of courage.

She taught me that I can achieve any goal I pursue, that I can be whatever I want to be, and that it's all up to me.

    My mom and I go to OU home games together. Sometimes we are brave enough to go to away games, too.  Since I graduated from OU and since my mom is finishing her degree at OU and since we have some connections with past generations of big, winning OU teams, we are fervent fans. (Look it up!) We were at the Orange Bowl for the 1985 National Championship, listening to news of the Miami game at the Sugar Bowl. (I will forever love one orange team: Tennessee, because they stole the championship from Miami that year and handed it to us.)

(That was before the BCS, when all national championships were at the whim of sports writers, coaches, and some elusive, intangible something that no one ever really understood...hmmm. Sounds a lot like the BCS, doesn't it?)

Mom was at the game we won to earn the 2000 National Championship. I hope to be with her the next time OU plays for the big prize, our 8th! Maybe it will happen this year...

Ecstatic fans rushed the field and brought down the goal posts
after OU's glorious victory over Nebraska in October, 2000.

       It doesn't matter what I'm doing with my mom.  We always end up laughing...laughing HARD and for a long time.  Laughter is a very important part of our family routine.  We have a great time together, and Emma, Sean, Susan, and I all hope she will move back here to Tulsa very soon.
 

Resources and Links to Other Sites

College Board  Info about the AP program and College Board's other programs.  This might become more important to you as you get closer to going to college.  You can even search for specific info from different colleges about which AP scores give how much credit.     College Board for Parents  Info specifically for parents, with advice about getting ready for college and more     PASS Skills Info from the Oklahoma State Department of Education, what skills you should be learning when and in what classes     Tulsa City-County Library  Use the number on your library card to log on and find what you need!  You DO have a library card, don't you?     Bartlett's Quotations online  This is fun and easy to use.

Search engines I like to use:     google     lycos     northernlight     askjeeves