"Really, an old refrigerator box covered with aluminum foil, with a flashing police car light rigged at the top and various knobs and keyboards screwed and glue-gunned on. Inside, a comfortable pillow for sitting and a flashlight attached to a curly phone cord. A student helped me install a bookshelf inside the box with a power drill.The idea: time travel through books.I left the machine in the classroom, buckled and locked closed with lots of signs all over it: "TOP SECRET""Under Construction! Highly Radioactive!"The big question was who would be the first daring hero to risk his or her life in the contraption? In the interest of fairness, this seemed best left to chance, even at the risk that some terrible realist would be chosen and announce, 'It's nothing but a box full of books! It's a fake!'It turned out that JoEllen was chosen. We sent her off with much fanfare, with me pressing buttons and turning knobs feverishly, double-checking for accuracy...In she went. The doors closed. On went the police car light. 'Back to work'. Silent reading time.In a half hour, I retrieved her. She came out, breathless. "What did you see?" Everybody wanted to know. JoEllen paused.'A joust''A what?''Two guys. Fighting on horses. Their armor clanging as they rode...'For the rest of the day, the kids took turns in the time machine. So far, nobody has said, 'It's just a box full of books.'"
She's one of those teachers who isn't afraid to think outside the box, to experiment, and to fail. She inspires weary followers to break the shackles of state test scores to inundating our students with passion for education and eventually, empowerment. She peels away the bs surrounding conventional ways of learning to unleash the potential that really lies within. Just through her own actions, she sends out a message for teachers and students to challenge ourselves to reach further, do better...
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