About Us: Advisors

SUZANNE RANSLEBEN _ Educational Advisor

- Teacher-Carroll High School, Corpus Christi, Texas; Placement English,  grades 9-10; years full-time teaching: 20.
Suzanne sets the bar high and uses in-depth,multidisciplinary studies that connect learning to life. Had students in 1990 make a video documentary of local Holocaust survivors that's now part of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; a survivors group sent her to Israel and Germany, where she gathered materials for a six-week Holocaust unit now used in eight states. During Square Week, separates students into "families," and get updates on who dies and who gets sent to concentration camps as Hitler marches across Europe; students must sit on the floor during lunch and in the back of classrooms and get points deducted for reasons they can't guess. At week's end, the publish an underground newspaper and read Elie Wiesel's Night. "Students do feel uncomfortable, but students are always given the choice to participate. In the real world, you can't change who you are, and that's what I try to teach them." Created Grammar Football to diagram sentences; has students learn poetry by deciphering song lyrics. Makes students' first experience with Shakespeare interactive; they paint
interpretations of their favorite line from Romeo and Juliet and watch a film in a mock Globe Theatre, drawing straws for upper-, middle- or lower-class seating. Illuminates the path to college from the start; encouraging freshmen to take the PSAT and never letting up on vocabulary.: "I can't tell you enough — vocabulary separates you from your competitors" in college admissions. Gives students and parents her phone numbers and e-mail addresses and is available for tutoring before and after school. "I believe in them. And if they know someone believes in them, they believe in themselves."