Trish Wilkinson
In 1982, Patricia (Trish) Wilkinson started teaching elementary school in East Los Angeles, California. It was there Ms. Wilkinson first internalized how to make a game out of learning and break down concepts to their essence to develop background knowledge that kids could build on. Since lots of her students were learning English, figuring out ways to make school fun with music, art, dance social studies simulations and hands-on science became her quest. Although she admits teaching isn’t an easy profession, she remembers saying to people, “This is so much fun; I can’t believe people are paying me to do this!”
In 1990, Ms. Wilkinson followed her husband, Chuck, Chief Executive Officer and part owner of KALF Radio, to Chico, California, 90 miles north of Sacramento. There they had two daughters, Alia and Paige. On a whim, Ms. Wilkinson attended a couple classes offered by The Children’s Education Workshop to learn how to use materials in conjunction with her girls’ favorite show, Sesame Street. These classes were a spring board for all kinds of fun activities she came up with to do at home with her kids. Fellow parents shared their ideas and experiences with their children, too. It wasn’t part of the plan, but all this fun and games turned into amazing learning opportunities. Ms. Wilkinson also used several of the activities she’d tried out on her kids, like silly songs, cooking and art projects to teach immigrants, both children and adults, how to communicate in English in a nearby small town called Durham.
By the time Alia turned 5, after the sale of KALF Radio, the Wilkinsons moved to the extreme opposite end of the state, to San Diego County. Alia attended kindergarten in the Chula Vista Elementary School District at a school in Bonita, California, in the same location where her mommy taught first grade. Mrs. Wilkinson’s students would make applesauce, sing songs to the guitar and play rhythm instruments, and paint illustrations to plots written during class to generate story books, and Alia would come to the classroom after school to reap the benefits. Mmm! Homemade applesauce!
Two years later, when younger daughter, Paige, started kindergarten, Ms. Wilkinson became the neighborhood mom. Friends ran in and out of the classroom after school; impromptu art projects adorned the tables; Brownie and Girl Scout meetings took place; healthy snacks to munch on waited in the cupboard, kids sat down for a built-in homework study hall, and Ms. Wilkinson lent support for working out social scrapes between friends.
As Alia and Paige grew, the student population at the neighborhood school shrunk. Since Ms. Wilkinson gets a kick out of kids in all of their ages and stages, and planning cool projects to go with new curriculum seems more like fun than work, she offered to play musical grade levels as the student numbers changed. In more than 23 years of teaching, Ms. Wilkinson has enjoyed teaching all 7 grades, kindergarten through sixth. She also helped other teachers to develop effective writing programs.
When her daughters entered middle school, Ms. Wilkinson took a leave of absence beginning September, 2007 to support her daughters while they make their way through these uncertain years of adolescence.
Often at the grocery store, or while she’s waiting in the parking lot to pick up her high school age children, former students make it a point to remind Ms. Wilkinson of their experiences in her class. “Remember dissecting squid in third grade or digging for gold on the playground in fourth grade like real prospectors during the Gold Rush?” one boy asks, much taller than the last time Ms. Wilkinson saw him. “I was so nervous at first when we sang and played rhythm instruments in front of the whole school and all the parents!” says a girl, now in tenth grade. “When I was the ‘lighthouse’ in that readers’ theater we did, that’s when I really learned to read,” says another high school boy. “I’ll never forget winning that essay contest for the whole district or getting published in a real anthology,” says a ninth grader that had Ms. Wilkinson as her writing teacher in the sixth grade. “I’m going to be a writer when I grow up.”
Two years out of the classroom, and Ms. Wilkinson still gets calls from parents of elementary age children asking advice for all kinds of things: ages and stages, curriculum, social scrapes, learning problems, keeping gifted kids plugged in at school ... The list goes on and on. Her dad used to say, “Trishie, anything’s easy when you know how to do it.” Her father’s sentiment fostered the commitment Ms. Wilkinson made to write an all-inclusive resource for conscientious parents entitled: Grade by Grade: Excellent Elementary Education Made Easy. The book answers parents' need for a guide to get their kids happily and successfully through each grade of elementary school, building what Ms. Wilkinson likes to call, “A solid education foundation.”
Ms. Wilkinson is currently seeking an agent to help her get a contract with a publisher. The date for publication of Grade by Grade: Excellent Elementary Education Made Easy will be published on the www.gradebygrade.com website as soon as it has been firmly established.
In the meantime, click on the blog button or go directly to http://trish-trishblog.blogspot.com to learn how to help your child develop a love for learning, have a few giggles, and add your own family stories and comments. For personal questions regarding your child’s education or a specific situation at school, send an email to Ms. Wilkinson at Trish@gradebygrade.com, and she’ll do her best to get back to you within 24 hours. For more information and support before Grade by Grade: Excellent Education Made Easy is published, take a tour through the other links listed on the www.gradebygrade.com website.
Ms. Wilkinson also writes articles for local publications such as San Diego Family Magazine and the Coronado Eagle and Journal, and she coaches kids, from 5 years on up, to develop them as writers.