Alice T. Batrow
The date of this premiere induction dinner happily coincides with the day when Alice T. Batrow turns eighty-six years young. It is an occasion to echo the words of former colleague Alberta Besso who told a New Haven Register reporter in 1993 that Alice “is one of the most dearly beloved people of this town. She's the glowing, living reminder to us all of what the phrase 'The Golden Years' can mean."
Born on Prospect Street in Branford on May 8, 1912, Alice graduated from Branford High School in 1930 and from New Haven Normal School in 1933. Her first assignment was teaching Grades 4, 5, and f 6 at the Old Indian Neck School, where Margaret Beech taught the three primary grades. Those were the days, Alice once recalled, when teaching assignments included everything from filling the oil lamps to cleaning the chimneys. She was assigned a year later to Branford Hills, teaching grades 1-3, and then to a third-grade classroom at the Old Short Beach School.
In 1939, Alice's marriage to John A. Batrow forced her resignation; and she remained a home maker until their children, Mary and John, were in school. Returning to the classroom in 1950 after an eleven-year hiatus, Alice as assigned to fourth grade at the Short Beach School and in 1958 received a Bachelor of Science degree from New Haven State Teachers College. Although fourth grade was Alice's main assignment for most of the rest of her twenty-seven official years in the system, she also had assignments in fifth and sixth grades before her retirement in 1977. Her upper elementary classes were used by Alice and her team for developing curricula for open space while the Intermediate School was being designed and built. When the school opened in 1972, Alice was among the faculty.
Retirement certainly turned out to be a misnomer where Alice is concerned. After her husband, who had served for twenty-five years on the Branford Board of Education, died in 1978, Alice found her love of teaching and of children drawing her back to the classroom. Consequently, when Francis Walsh approached her about becoming a math aide, she didn't hesitate to accept. The fall of 1978 saw Alice back at the Intermediate School, where she is to this day.
Scheduled for ten hours a week, Alice's commitment knows no time clock, and her hours always extend far beyond her contract. In addition to her work as a math aide, she also substitutes in the classroom when needed. She finds it the best of both worlds - spending time in the classroom and coaching individual students of various grade and abilities.
Foremost of Alice’s work with her students at the Intermediate School is her pet volunteer project: the construction of polyhedral, a concept she introduced in her early days at the former Short Beach School. She is in fact credited with having invented the story cube as the result of her boredom with the routine formula for book reports. Having used the technique in her own classes, Alice submitted it to a national educational trade journal, which published the guidelines nationally. After constructing a three dimensional figure from geometric shapes, the student presents different information about a subject on each face of the figure. Now going far beyond simple cubes, her students now produce colorful, multi-faceted figures that hang throughout the school's media center and often find their way into other class areas. Alice's "second time around" in her teaching career brings love warmth, understanding and confidence to staff and students alike and literally adds color and texture to the school through her students work.
Born on Prospect Street in Branford on May 8, 1912, Alice graduated from Branford High School in 1930 and from New Haven Normal School in 1933. Her first assignment was teaching Grades 4, 5, and f 6 at the Old Indian Neck School, where Margaret Beech taught the three primary grades. Those were the days, Alice once recalled, when teaching assignments included everything from filling the oil lamps to cleaning the chimneys. She was assigned a year later to Branford Hills, teaching grades 1-3, and then to a third-grade classroom at the Old Short Beach School.
In 1939, Alice's marriage to John A. Batrow forced her resignation; and she remained a home maker until their children, Mary and John, were in school. Returning to the classroom in 1950 after an eleven-year hiatus, Alice as assigned to fourth grade at the Short Beach School and in 1958 received a Bachelor of Science degree from New Haven State Teachers College. Although fourth grade was Alice's main assignment for most of the rest of her twenty-seven official years in the system, she also had assignments in fifth and sixth grades before her retirement in 1977. Her upper elementary classes were used by Alice and her team for developing curricula for open space while the Intermediate School was being designed and built. When the school opened in 1972, Alice was among the faculty.
Retirement certainly turned out to be a misnomer where Alice is concerned. After her husband, who had served for twenty-five years on the Branford Board of Education, died in 1978, Alice found her love of teaching and of children drawing her back to the classroom. Consequently, when Francis Walsh approached her about becoming a math aide, she didn't hesitate to accept. The fall of 1978 saw Alice back at the Intermediate School, where she is to this day.
Scheduled for ten hours a week, Alice's commitment knows no time clock, and her hours always extend far beyond her contract. In addition to her work as a math aide, she also substitutes in the classroom when needed. She finds it the best of both worlds - spending time in the classroom and coaching individual students of various grade and abilities.
Foremost of Alice’s work with her students at the Intermediate School is her pet volunteer project: the construction of polyhedral, a concept she introduced in her early days at the former Short Beach School. She is in fact credited with having invented the story cube as the result of her boredom with the routine formula for book reports. Having used the technique in her own classes, Alice submitted it to a national educational trade journal, which published the guidelines nationally. After constructing a three dimensional figure from geometric shapes, the student presents different information about a subject on each face of the figure. Now going far beyond simple cubes, her students now produce colorful, multi-faceted figures that hang throughout the school's media center and often find their way into other class areas. Alice's "second time around" in her teaching career brings love warmth, understanding and confidence to staff and students alike and literally adds color and texture to the school through her students work.