Greater Falls Church School Bulletin Board

Humanitarian Betty Tisdale Speaks to Longfellow Middle School Students

Tisdale was first inspired to start a life of helping others by Dr. Tom Dooley, who cared for sick children in Southeast Asia. After Dooley died at the age of 34, Tisdale helped maintain the clinics and orphanages that Dooley had been working with. In 1961, she traveled to Southeast Asia for the first time. She has since been back to Vietnam and many other countries. She recently returned from humanitarian work in Afghanistan.

"I felt like I needed to go some place where I could feel like I was helping," Tisdale said.

In 2000 Tisdale founded HALO (Helping And Loving Orphans) to provide orphanages and humanitarian support in countries that are in need.

Tisdale is step-mother to five boys and has adopted five girls. Her granddaughter, Ally Tisdale is a student at Longfellow.

Tisdale's presentation underlines the importance of community service for Longfellow's seventh-grade students. As eighth-graders, they will be taking part in Service Learning projects, where for over a period of 24 hours, they will be looking for ways to contribute to society.

Kayne Miller, a teacher at Longfellow who helped organize the presentation, talks about the impact of the presentation on her students. "They were impressed," says Miller. "They started asking questions about what they can do."

This response is exactly the impression that Tisdale wants to leave with young people. "This is our future," she says.

After seeing a video of the work she has done and pictures of people she has helped, the students were struck by how much there is for them to do in the world. "They're still young enough, where pictures of children suffering really make an impression," says Miller.

Despite the size of the problems, they can also see how progress can be made. As the soon-to-be eighth-graders start thinking about their own service projects they can think about Betty Tisdale, and how she was able to make a difference. "I'm not anything but one person trying to help," says Tisdale.

Falls Church High School Awarded $35,000 Hewlett-Packard Technology Grant

A team of five teachers at Falls Church High will use the HP wireless technology and other resources to enhance learning in the classroom. The school will receive an HP award package worth $35,000 that includes five Tablet personal computers, five multimedia projectors, an Officejet all-in-one, a digital camera, K-12 help desk support for one year, a $500 stipend per teacher, and a professional development program that includes customized learning opportunities, expert mentoring, and participation in an online learning community to support the technology.

The teachers involved in the project-Wendy Shugol, Marcia Bellamy, Donna Johnson, Deborah Burk, and Lynelle Palencia-represent general and special education in science, mathematics, social studies, and English. Their project, titled Seasonal Water Chemistry Variations in an Urban Water System, is designed to increase student awareness of the impact of human interaction on the environment.

The project will be implemented during the 2004-05 school year.
Steve Smith (center), a seventh grade science teacher at Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church, was one of five recipients of the 2004 Teacher of the Year Medal of Excellence Award from the Challenger Center for Space Education. Smith was selected as a recipient of the award for his enthusiasm and commitment to teaching science in the classroom. Smith's seventh grade team of 125 students was on hand for a surprise presentation of the award at the school last Thursday, May 20. Smith has been a teacher at Jackson Middle School since 2000. He currently serves as coordinator of the Rolling Thunder seventh grade team. (News-Press Photo)