Elizabeth Anthony

Elizabeth Anthony currently has four published works on Amazon. Teaching: A Love Story, Josh (A contemporary retelling of the Biblical story of Jesus), Like a River (a novel), and Once A Teacher (a novel).

Biography

Elizabeth Anthony believes she was born to be a teacher. She admits that she tortured her younger brother and sister by making them sit in the play house in the backyard of their home while she relentlessly taught them numbers and letters and while she read aloud from their collection of Little Golden Books. By the time Ms. Anthony's siblings went to kindergarten, however, both were well ahead of their peers. Their parents were professional and literate, so she takes only minimal credit. She was a dedicated student, satisfied with nothing less than "straight A's" throughout elementary, middle, and high school. After graduating magna cum laude from college, she went on to teach high school, first in the Midwest and then in the Southwest where she not only taught English for a total of thirty years but where she also spent three and a half years as a high school administrator. Elizabeth retired in 2008 and began teaching part time at a state college where she continues to teach in the School of Education, hoping to pass along the torch of the art and science of excellent teaching.

"A teacher hasn't taught unless the students have learned." This mantra taught to Liz by her beloved dad, defined Ms. Anthony's approach to pedagogy. The best principal of the seven or so with whom Liz taught gave her the following ideals: "If you don't learn the way I teach, I will teach the way you learn." Though not easy, this, Ms. Anthony believes, is the key to unlocking students' passion for learning of all kinds. "Where am I going to use what you are teaching me today?" This question guided the way Ms. Anthony planned lessons based on Standards and Objectives. If something isn't relevant, make it so! Finally, "Students don't care how much we know until they know how much we care," is the paradigm that Elizabeth believes needs to control classroom climate, the essential component, which, combined with engaging lessons creates an effective, efficient educational environment.

Elizabeth was raised in a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian home. Degrees in English and Secondary Education, graduate degrees in Educational Leadership and post-graduate work in literacy and curriculum and lots and lots of reading have led Ms. Anthony to expand her philosophical views and to reevaluate the limiting dogma of her childhood. Josh offers an alternative perspective on the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. The work is largely fictional, but by its nature is also biographic. Elizabeth hopes that reading Josh will inspire questioning minds to investigate other views of the historic and religious texts that reveal the truth about the simple man whose life and ideas changed the world forever.

When Ms. Anthony is not writing or teaching, she is probably reading--or boating or hiking with her husband. Next to great literature, the outdoors and animals, dogs in particular, are her passions.

"Elizabeth Anthony" is a pen name chosen to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent described in a very revealing memoir, Teaching: A Love Story, her first book. Josh is Ms. Anthony's second book. Like A River is her first novel. Elizabeth's fourth book is Once A Teacher, an historical novel.

You can contact Elizabeth at teachingalovestory@yahoo.com or on Facebook.