Personal Statement

Mary Jane holds a B.A. in History plus 7-12 Social Studies Certification from SUNY Potsdam along with a Masters of Education from the University of Virginia. She enrolled in various courses throughout her teaching career to help her with the curriculum and how to engage students, including personalized learning and AP Economics at Goucher College. She began her teaching career in Albemarle County in Charlottesville, Virginia where she was not only a classroom teacher, but the testing coordinator and department chairperson. While teaching at Albemarle High School, she was introduced to many of the courses offered through the Social Science and Global Studies Department. In June 2000, she and her husband moved to Loudoun County, Virginia to continue their teaching careers. As a teacher in Loudoun County, she taught World History I, Pre AP World History, AP Economics (both micro and macro), AP United States Government and Politics, AP Comparative Government, US/Virginia Government and Economics. During her off time from teaching, she was the Debate Coach at Stone Bridge High School and Model Judiciary Coach/Sponsor for both Stone Bridge High School and Loudoun Valley High School. In 2020, as her son graduated from the College of William and Mary, she decided to join her husband in retirement after 34 years of teaching. During retirement, she has been a long term substitute teacher for Loudoun County and has had the opportunity to teach AP Psychology, AP Economics and AP Human Geography. Her philosophy towards teaching centers on the student - how does this individual student learn? Throughout her decades of teaching, she has learned multiple memory devices and “tricks of the trade” to help each student find success. She believes in the golden rule of “repeating an item five times” for the memory to take hold - hear it, see it, visualize it and work with it. A basic lesson involves direct instruction, question and answer time, practice time, review time and follow up from previous lessons. The old cliche “there is no such thing as a dumb question” has aided Mary Jane in developing multiple methods to help students understand and retain the information presented in class. Not only did she devote class time to learning, but would hold multiple morning and afternoon sessions for review, whether for a unit test or the AP Tests.

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