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CRIMSON SHIELD
THE ONLINE MAGAZINE OF BROTHER MARTIN HIGH SCHOOL |
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| January 2011 |
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Susan Cooper
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"From the time I was a child, I wanted to teach. My mother says I used to teach my dolls."
- Susan Cooper was born in New Orleans but grew up in Chalmette.
- When she was 10, she gathered the children in the neighborhood in her back yard and read Nancy Drew mysteries to them. "I taught my sisters when they were growing up. I still teach my nieces and nephews."
- After attending Our Lady of Prompt Succor through eighth grade, Susan spent her first three years of high school in the formation program of the School Sisters of Notre Dame at Chatawa MS.
- She played basketball and volleyball at Chatawa, earning a Most Valuable Player award.
- Susan returned to Chalmette in time to be part of the first graduating class of Andrew Jackson, an all girls school at that time.
Another love of Susan's life started early.
- "I've been involved in music from the time I was six." She sang in the parish choir although she has never taken singing lessons.
- The first instrument she learned to play was the accordion, then the piano. She taught herself the guitar in her 20s.
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Set on becoming a teacher, Susan attended UNO.
- She studied English and French in order to teach those subjects in high school.
- While in high school and college, she taught CCD classes at OLPS.
Susan began teaching in the St. Bernard Parish public schools.
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She taught English and French at Beauregard High for several years.
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She then spent five years at Holy Cross. During this time, she returned to UNO to obtain a Master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction. Asked if she planned to enter administration, Susan replies, "I never wanted that job. I just wanted to teach. It's been my passion all my life. I didn't even aspire to being department chair."
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Led to believe she would be put in charge of the Reading Lab at Holy Cross, Susan also obtained a reading specialist's certification at UNO. When she was not made head of the lab, she applied to the archdiocese in hopes of teaching elsewhere.
"I was literally led to Brother Martin," she believes.
- She interviewed with Shaw and was scheduled to sign a contract there.
- Before that happened, Brother Donnan, the principal of Brother Martin, contacted her. He needed someone to teach reading since Brother Rene was retiring.
- "Brother Ivy interviewed me. I remember him asking if I had any discipline problems. I said, 'Is there a teacher that doesn't?' He said that was a good answer."
- She was relaxed during the interview because she had a job lined up. "I told him, 'If you're gonna hire me, do it before Friday because I'm signing a contract somewhere else.'"
Susan began teaching on Elysian Fields in 1979.
- She taught 8th grade reading until the subject was abolished as a separate course.
- Except for some French I classes and one junior Composition class, she has specialized in 8th- and 9th-grade English.
- She helped briefly with Speech and Debate and Drama. Otherwise, her primary non-teaching position has been as a member of the Liturgy Committee since its inception.
- Teaching continues to bring her fulfillment. "There's something to be said for that look in a student's eye when they finally understand and you've been trying to get them to understand for so long and that dawning comes. For me, it's with Shakespeare and poetry."
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Susan Cooper 1979-80
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