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JCC Instructor Assists in Writing Longtime Adrian Teacher's Autobiography
Jackson Community College instructor Julia Hanawalt knows how to tell a story in writing. Retired Adrian teacher D. Florine Baker had quite a story to tell. Together, the two have put together a new book, Baker's autobiography, highlighting her life and 30 years of teaching.
"God's Angels with Special Talents" by Baker is an inspirational autobiography depicting the impact one teacher had on her high school special needs students. Hanawalt, a tutor-training instructor in JCC's Center for Student Success, helped Baker organize two boxes full of notebooks, photos, and letters from her 30 years of teaching. Hanawalt is an English teacher who holds a master's degree in English from Wayne State University and has proofread books, college dissertations and more in the past. She created an extensive list of general headings and instructed Baker to write as many pages of information she could after each heading, and then let her know when she was finished. Two years later, Hanawalt received a call out of the blue. It was Baker, who had accomplished the task and had notebooks of handwritten memoirs.
From there, the two spent several days together at Baker's summer cottage in the Upper Peninsula. Hanawalt interviewed Baker for more information, found appropriate Bible verses to include for Baker, a woman of faith, and learned more about her. Baker used unusual and creative methods to teach students with challenged backgrounds the educational and life skills necessary not only to graduate, but to grow and thrive after graduation. Her most successful technique was finding out what her students wanted to learn, learning the skills, and teaching it to them. Through learning to upholster furniture, cane chairs, can produce, sew, knit, quilt, decorate cakes, and market their products, her students learned not only the three R's, they also learned marketing, finance, hygiene, and health. Each year Baker took her students on a two-week trip, with the students planning the trip and working out geography, finance, computing mileage, gas and food prices, cooking and more.
Working with this special teacher was a challenge and an honor for Hanawalt. "Pulling together the information from 30 years was the hardest part," Hanawalt said. "The most astonishing thing to me was the constant joy and strength Flo has maintained throughout her life; she gives credit for this to her faith in God," Hanawalt said. Baker thanks Hanawalt for her help in the Acknowledgements.
"God's Angels with Special Talents" is published by ACW Press (American Christian Writers) and is available at Agape Booksellers in the Jackson Crossing Mall and the Sounds of Light Christian Bookstore in Adrian. Cost is $16.95.
