My name is Debbie Easom. I live in Granbury, Texas. I am a retired educator, and this is my story.

I began teaching in 1974. I taught two years in second grade, two years in first grade and then I found the “loves” of my life. The next sixteen years were delightfully spent teaching third graders. Well, I got kind of tired of that, so in 1994 I left Arlington, Texas as a third grade teacher and metamorphosed into an associate principal at Mansfield High School. Whoa!! Now that’s what I call a change! MHS is a 5A school with 2500 students. I was so nervous on my first day the only thing I really remember is, during the first passing period, I grabbed the principal, my boss, and said, “Holy Cow! I forgot they don’t walk in single file line here, do they?” Of course, my main duty was discipline (I had sophomores and juniors whose last names began with A through L). The first two months, when the kids would be sent to me by the teachers, I would stand behind my desk while they sat in front of my desk so we would at least be eye-level. Well, after a while I realized size really had nothing to do with it. These kids were just giant third-graders with a different set of problems. After a couple of years, I became the curriculum principal and dealt more with staff development, curriculum and teachers.

I stayed at MHS for five years and then moved to Amarillo, Texas. Amarillo is in the Texas Panhandle, and if you’ve never been there, it is so flat and treeless that you could watch your dog run away for a mile. They say the only thing that blocks the wind (which always blows!) are the barbed-wire fences. Anyway, in Amarillo I worked for Region 16 Education Service Center. I specialized in English, Language Arts and dyslexia. Basically I modeled lessons for teachers in grades K-3, did workshops and trainings concerning elementary language arts and dyslexia and trained a few superintendents and principals on the Texas Teacher Evaluation System. I was with Region 16 for four years.

Then, I retired! Yippee!!