My name is Marlene Wright, but I go by the nickname Marlee. I graduated from Meredith College in 1979 with a degree in Music Education and Elementary Ed. I have taught music, kindergarten and first grade, primarily. I am a kindergarten teacher now, in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools.
My mother tells the story that I wanted to quit school after the very first day. She says that I came home and told her I was not going back to school because they had not taught me to read! I have loved books for as long as I can remember, and I really wanted to learn how to read. I was that child who would hurry through work so that I could get back to my book. I would become so absorbed in what I was reading that I would look up and realize that my classmates had gone out to recess. It didn’t bother me, though; I would simply get back to my book and read until they came in! I learned to read with the Dick and Jane series, and I can even remember my first story. It read “Go, go. Go, Dick, go! Help, help!” I loved to get to know characters in books, and I read books from many different series, including The Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and the Happy Hollisters. I think that, as I read book after book with the same cast of characters, I felt like I knew them, like they were friends.
I enjoyed writing, as well. At one point, when all of my friends wanted to be movie stars, I wanted to be an author. I was fortunate enough to have teachers who nurtured that aspect of my education, and who encouraged me in my reading and writing. I think that is what inspired me to want to become a teacher.
Although I graduated with a degree in education, I have not always been a teacher. When I got married and moved to High Point, there was a surplus of teachers, so positions were difficult to find. I took a job in the private sector, working in customer service, credit, and purchasing departments of a local textile manufacturer. I experienced life “on the other side of the fence,” and I found that “the grass is not always greener.” Although I liked my job, and I liked the people with whom I worked, I was truly meant to be a teacher, and when I returned to the field of teaching, I realized that working with children was what I was meant to do. I love my job. It thrills me when a child looks up at me and says “I can do it – I really can read!” The experience of “watching the lights come on” for students touches my heart in a very special way. Likewise, the frustration that I see in children who are having difficulty in reading touches my heart – I want to find a way to help these children. This desire is what led me to begin the graduate program in Reading Education. As I have participated in graduate classes I have, on countless occasions, said to myself “So that’s what was going on with ___!” If we could only go back in time and work with those children again....
Marlee Wright