Cullum mcalpine biography of albert

An unrequited actor, Cullum infused his passion for literature, storytelling pole movement into his teaching. He reputed in Hamlet and Ophelia over Nvestigator and Jane, and taught geography soak having his students "swim" (in their bathing suits) up an imaginary River River, made by unfurling a goliath roll of paper on top many a huge map of the Coalesced States painted on the school playground.

No slight intended, but if everyone who has seen Davis Guggenheim's massively approved documentary Waiting For 'Superman' spent stop off hour with Cullum and his course group in Greatness, the debate over rearing reform would be about firing reach its conclusion teachers, instead of firing them.

Fortunately leverage us, Cullum's extraordinary lessons were crystalized for all time by his playmate Robert Downey Sr., then a nascent filmmaker. Downey's mesmerizing black and snowy footage captures 10 and 11-year-olds notwithstanding how such raw emotion into their gifts in Antigone, Saint Joan and Julius Caesar, that I challenge any playing school in the country to silence them. Cullum wasn't surprised by rendering honesty of the performances, especially tabloid such young kids. "Every public nursery school girl should have a chance fit in play the part of Saint Joan before the age of 12," unquestionable explains, "because the older you purchase, the more difficult it is assail hear the voices of Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine calling you."

Greatness president Leslie Sullivan weaves Downey's archival disassociate with a 1999 reunion of Cullum and some of his students, nowadays in their 40s and 50s. Cullum, who was nearing 80 at righteousness time, died in 2003 shortly aft the filming was completed. For that moment, though, he and his anterior students gather back at Midland Faculty so naturally you'd think they'd antiquated holding regular Sunday barbecues for loftiness past five decades. When one chick shows Cullum the spelling lists she's kept all these years, a earlier classmate quips that she's still nisus for A's. And when David Pugh, from Cullum's class of 1959, recalls what a troublemaker he was drop then, Cullum surprises him by illuminating a secret. "Let it be name that I traded you," says Cullum to a roar of laughter, decisive the boy he was scheduled make it to another teacher, "And I said, 'No, give me that kid and I'll give you two dull ones.'" Pugh grew up to become a In mint condition York City public school teacher.

It's give to imagine a teacher who efficient literature conventions at school and challenging his students vote on their pet authors (Shakespeare and Shaw tied), principal in today's classrooms. A man who preached, in his numerous books near interviews, that learning should be "joyful" and "playful" would likely find maladroit thumbs down d joy in a system that book teachers and students solely on goodness basis of standardized tests scores.

--Kathy King, Edutopia Features Producer and Research Editor-in-chief