PROFILES IN EDUCATION

Candace Braun

Nancy Adair

Name: Nancy Adair
School: American Boychoir School
Years Taught: 35 years
Subject/Grade Taught: middle school English; dean of academics
Education: undergraduate degree in psychology and education from Marymount and Fordham Universities; master's degree in education, supervision and administration from Rider University
Most Memorable Book: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Person You Admire: "I have a very special friend who taught me the one thing that no else ever took the time to teach me in my life...I learned that there was so much more to learn about myself as a person than I had every realized."

By looking at each teaching job as a learning experience, Nancy Adair has been able to turn her 35 years as an educator into 35 years of learning, travelling all over the world, finding new ways to teach her students, and getting to know herself in a way she never had before.

Although her duties as an English teacher, faculty supervisor, and coordinator of curriculum development at the American Boychoir School are the focus of her job, Ms. Adair began her career in teaching because of her interest in children. While studying for her degree in education and psychology in Virginia, she assisted a teacher working with autistic children at a mental institution.

"Having contact with children who are so engaged in their own world, and being responsible for bringing to them the best of the world outside of them, made me realize how important education is. It isn't about learning from books, its about learning how life is...To prepare any child for the real world is a priority that most people don't recognize as education."

After finishing college, Ms. Adair began teaching in her hometown of Newburgh, N.Y., where she first became intrigued by the adolescent age group: "They just want so desperately to not be children anymore but they're terrified of becoming an adult."

Following her marriage, she and her husband moved to Ohio where she worked at a small school about 20 miles outside of Columbus and discovered a different way of life. One of her most memorable experiences at the school was when the cows ate the children's lunches off the windowsill, she said: "All of it adds to your experience."

Ms. Adair's next move was to Washington D.C., where she taught at a prestigious private school for seven years before having her two daughters, now both 27 years old, whom she calls her "life accomplishment."

Improving Curriculum

At the McLean School of Maryland, where she taught middle school English and supervised a class of children with special needs, Ms. Adair became involved with the disciplinary committee, and was asked to help write the school's discipline code handbook. This led her to do research on the psychology of discipline and began her interest in school administration, which she continued when she moved to Plainsboro in 1983 and became a middle school English and social studies teacher at the American Boychoir School, whose musically gifted students travel worldwide on singing tours.

Ms. Adair soon saw a need to make sure the curriculum provided the best education possible for students who spend as many as 12 weeks on the road each school year.

Aware of how difficult it was for the boys to focus their attention and time on their schoolwork while riding on busses across the country, she created the idea of tour packets, in which each teacher would incorporate lesson plans and assign particular amounts of work that the boys had to finish during each day on the tour.

She also suggested that each teacher provide lesson plans the accompanying teacher could present on the bus either for the entire group, or for each separate grade level, so that one group could hear a lecture from the teacher, while another group worked on lesson plans in a book, and another listened to lessons on tape.

After earning a master's degree in education, supervision, and administration, Ms. Adair became the assistant head of school for seven years. When that became a residency position, she was appointed the dean of academics.

On the Road

Having toured with the American Boychoir 45 times in her 22 years at the school, Ms. Adair has been to all but two states in the U.S., and to 11 foreign countries. From being in President Nixon's California hometown the day he died, to performing in front of the queen of Denmark, she and her students have had many memorable moments together.

"These boys get to see things by the time they're 14 that some people don't get to see in their lifetime," she said.

So that her students learn from their travels, Ms. Adair has incorporated a journal-writing time into each day's lesson plan on the tours. The students are asked to write about something interesting that was in the news in the town where they stayed, or something interesting they found out while staying with their host families.

Very appreciative of the hospitality the host families show the boys, Ms. Adair tells them not to do their homework but to spend their time socializing with the family and getting to know something about the area. The next morning the boys are also required to write personal thank you notes to the families.

"While they're here we want them to develop character that will last them a lifetime. Teaching them to be gentlemen is probably the most important thing we do."

And the students don't forget what she's taught them, as Ms. Adair learned during a reunion in 2001. Having alumni come back and tell her that she's touched their lives "is the greatest reward," she said.

While teaching at the school is often a difficult task, with class schedules changing daily and tours that take her on the road sometimes for six weeks, Ms. Adair says that what keeps her going are her students, and the faculty.

"I have a huge job here but what's made me stay here for 22 years are the people who work with me...Education has become a mission for me, and adolescents have become my love."

To recommend an educator for the Profiles in Education series, contact Candace Braun.