Fifty Years Of Magical Teaching: A Tribute to ELAINE TRUDEAU

A tribute to Elaine Trudeau's lifelong teaching: written by the students, colleagues, friends and family of Elaine Trudeau gathered by her beloved, Braman.What you are about to read is an extraordinary tribute. It is the collection of a tsunami of praisesabout high school teacher Elaine Trudeau (who passed too early, on May 13, 2021) from herstudents (some now in their sixties), colleagues, and parents since she began her teaching careerin the late 1960s.I lived and worked and loved with her for more than forty years, after we married whenwe were 38. We met as English teachers in the late 1970s and began a life-long mission ofworking with and teaching teenagers.Trudeau had a nearly photographic memory, knew six languages, and won five NationalEndowment for the Humanities awards for summer study at schools such as the University ofPennsylvania, Williams, Holy Cross, and Trinity. But it was teaching and working with her“kids” (as she called them) that was her true vocation. Even after she retired, she kept track ofmore than two hundred on Facebook, right up to the end.This book is a gathering of their praises of her. These writings are mini-biographies ofher life with them. The students share remarkable insights of her as a teacher, including her highstandards, her compassion, her never giving up on any student, her protecting them from abuseof any kind, her ability to motivate them, her introducing them as responsible adults to the rest ofthe world, and her teaching them to stand up for what is right.She also used her work with them in drama to produce similar results. With them, sheproduced as many as four plays a year, always including at least one Shakespeare, which was anannual favorite event in our little New Hampshire town.These writings speak to every area of teaching and learning. It is my hope that thispublication will be an inspiration to students, faculty, and administrators, providing a model forbecoming a “magical” teacher.Trudeau is missed by her students; many have followed in her footsteps. I am so blessedto have known her.—Bob Braman Read more