Brigitte Tennis, founder, head mistress and seventh grade teacher at Stella Schola Middle School in Redmond, is among the contributing authors of a book called “Today I Made a Difference: A Collection of Inspirational Stories from America’s Top Educators.”
Pre-orders are being accepted at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Borders.com. And Tennis will do a book-signing from 1-4 p.m. Saturday, March 21 at Borders at Redmond Town Center.
Tennis has taught in the Lake Washington School District for more than 25 years. Stella Schola is a Choice school where all curriculum is tied to classical and historical themes.
Among her many professional accolades, in 2004, Tennis was selected as a DisneyHand American teacher honoree, which is how she came to be associated with “Today I Made a Difference.”
All of the book’s participants came from that class of 2004. Tennis got to know them in weeklong workshops at Disneyland and Disney World, “networking with other professionals, on-fire about what they’re doing,” she said. As fun bonuses, they met singer Clay Aiken, who spoke and performed at the Disney awards ceremony and mega-movie star Johnny Depp, who was filming “Pirates of the Caribbean: II and III” at the time.
The Disney educators have kept in touch ever since. The group includes outstanding teachers from Alaska to Florida, encompassing all grade levels and different subjects in a wide variety of school settings.
“It took a while to get an editor,” Tennis noted, but once the book came together, the authors asked each other, “If there’s any profit, what will we do with it?” They agreed to put all proceeds into a pot for a student scholarship. “Maybe it’ll be a one-time thing or maybe ongoing, if it’s successful enough,” she explained.
Each author came up with personal insights about what it means to be an educator, what they’ve given to the career and what they’ve gained in return.
“My chapter is about how we find the jewel, the gem, within every child,” Tennis stated. “Over the years, some times were traumatic or reflective or there were exciting things. Sometimes I brought out the jewel in someone else or their jewel sparkled and brought out something in me.”
For example, in her very first year as a teacher, working with second graders, “I was so eager to teach that we finished everything by April,” said Tennis. “Then I said, ‘Oh-oh. Now what do we do for the rest of the school year?’.”
She asked her students what they’d like to try and they responded, “Let’s put on a play.” But not just any play.
They wanted to do “The Wizard of Oz” with all the frills. Of course, to fully utilize the school year’s remaining instructional time, “we had to incorporate math, English, music, everything!,” Tennis exclaimed, chuckling at the recollection. “By the end of the experience, I was so sick of the song ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’”
Yet years later, the student who played Dorothy in that production invited Tennis to her wedding shower where she used that song as a theme, showed a video of the performance and announced that because of that rich experience, she wanted to be a teacher.
Tennis also shared her memories about her emotional comeback from a bereavement leave, after her mother passed away, and how her students gave her the strength she needed to go on. There’s also a precious story about kids who served as matchmakers for some lonely senior citizens. And yet another about a difficult child who was full of anger and resistant to learning because of his problems at home.
“He was the pearl in my oyster,” said Tennis. “He was so closed-up at the beginning and went on to be a wonderful leader. The tie-up for all of this, is when people say to you, ‘Why did you go into teaching? It’s not glamorous or high-paying,’ you can make them understand how nothing else can be more rewarding.”
To learn more about Brigitte Tennis and Stella Schola Middle School, visit www.lwsd.org/school/ss/pages/default.aspx.
