About Us: Advisors

JILL FAIRHURST HALL – Educational Advisor

Jil has been teaching full-time for 24 years and is currently a third grade teacher at Brown Elementary School, Brownsburg, Indiana. Jill emphasizes two things, that children are more than just the sum of their test scores, and that everyone can contribute to making a better world. Organizes classroom as "Camp Learning Tree," with fake trees, a fake campfire and treehouse. Teaches through thematic units; students took out a $40 bank loan to make Native American crafts, sold them at a trading post, paid back the loan with interest and bought a $350 wood-burning stove for a New Mexico Navajo family. Had students research local farming history for a 2000 Library of Congress Local Legacy Project; their report, CD and quilt are part of the Library of Congress collection. Takes on clusters of kids with learning disabilities; still, 46% of her students scored in the top 10% in statewide language arts tests the past three years. "Her kids test well in writing because of the time she puts into teaching how a writer thinks and puts their thoughts together," principal Anne Rollinson says. "She has a gift." Won two Eli Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowships: one, after a student died of brain cancer, allowed her to volunteer at a children's hospital and write a booklet called The Empty Desk, for educators dealing with a student's death; the second sent her to Ireland, where many Brownsburg settlers were from, to learn Aran knitting traditions. Her student’s knitting club donated an afghan to a homeless shelter last year and is knitting "chemo caps" for pediatric cancer patients this year. Sends home a daily "Learning Gram" to give parents conversation-starters and opportunities to volunteer. Welcomes former students who come in for a hug each morning: "I want to kids leaving this room knowing they can do whatever they want to do. I want to be the person, not just this year, always cheering them on."