 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Dr. Jane Bluestein: Timeline
Milestones in the
life and times*
1951
Born, Philadelphia, PA.
1956
Move to Cherry Hill, NJ. Start Kindergarten at Coles School.
1967
Move from Cherry Hill to York, PA. Complete last two years of high school there.
1969
Graduate from York Suburban High School. Begin a long-term relationship with the University of Pittsburgh.
1973
Graduate from Pitt with a BS in Education. I’m invited to participate in a Graduate Intern Program for my Master of Arts in Teaching.
Meet Jerry Tereszkiewicz, future husband just as I begin an intensive, year-long Masters of Arts in Teaching at a very challenging assignment in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
1974
Complete Masters Degree and begin teaching math, Grades 4 - 8. I love the job but, alas, it's only a long-term sub arrangement.
After a few weeks of day-to-day subbing, I finally get hired full-time as a science and language arts teacher in a departmentalized elementary school.
1977
Decide, on my 26th birthday, to go back to school and end up in a Ph.D. program back at Pitt. Finish first course. Only 57 credits to go...
1979
Jerry and I get married in July.
1980
Finish my dissertation amidst a growing pile of boxes as we prepare to move out of state. Defend dissertation three days before we move.
After 11 years, I leave Pittsburgh and relocate to New Mexico, more or less on a hunch. It’s love at first sight!
Begin working as the coordinator of the Graduate Teaching Intern Program at the University of New Mexico.
Receive my Ph.D. six months after my defense, after I finally resolve a very small library fine with the Unversity of Pittsburgh.
1982
Complete and self-publish a survival manual for my first-year teaching interns, The Beginning Teacher's Resource Handbook. Instructional Support Services is informally established.
1983
We register the business and Instructional Support Services becomes official!
1985
First out-of-state speaking engagement, at the California AEYC Convention.
Bring out Parents in a Pressure Cooker with Lynn Collins.
1986
Release of Being a Successful Teacher, formerly the self-published Beginning Teacher's Resource Handbook.
Jerry leaves much-hated job in construction and becomes full-time business manager for our business.
Release of our first stationery items, including “Pads” on the Back, “TeacherSaver Memo Pads” and “Booster Shots” (elementary and secondary versions).
1988
First appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
1991
First European Speaking engagement: a Self-Esteem conference in Cambridge.
1992
Instructional Support Services becomes an S-Corporation.
1993
Release of Parents, Teens & Boundaries.
1994
First Canadian job, in Iqualuit, Nunavut (then NW Territories).
1995
We move to our current address on Father Sky NE.
Begin working with the Ministry of Education in Slovenia, the first of many trips in the next 7 years.
Release of Mentors, Masters & Mrs. MacGregor: Stories of Teachers Making a Difference.
1996
Mentors, Masters & Mrs. MacGregor wins Athena Award for Excellence in Mentoring.
1997
Release of Parents, Teens & Boundaries in Slovene.
Release of 21st Century Discipline in Slovene; also Japanese and Korean editions of Mentors.
Release of The Parent’s Little Book of Lists: Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Parenting.
Launch first version of this Web site.
1998
Book of Lists and Parents, Teens & Boundaries win Parents’ Choice Awards.
Release of Daily Riches: A Journal of Gratitude & Awareness.
1999
Begin working as a volunteer with high-risk youth at a day treatment center in Albuquerque.
Release of 21st Century Discipline—Revised Edition.
2000
Release of the Greek editions of Parents, Teens & Boundaries and The Parent's Little Book of Lists, which also comes out in Turkish.
First engagements in Australia and New Zealand.
2001
I begin working with the Bureau of Education and Research. The quality of my full-day seminar improves significantly and the number of speaking engagements and markets for my work increases as well.
Release of Creating Emotionally Safe Schools.
2002
Release of video series, Responsibility, Respect and Relationships: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools.
2003
Begin working with Eric Katz on new book, High School’s Not Forever.
McGraw-Hill brings out two new books for the library market using material from Being a Successful Teacher: Skills for Successful Teaching and Keys to Classroom Management.
New logo, new address. New Web site launched.
Release of ParentTapes on CD. Release of Parent Video series.
2004
Secure contract and spend the entire year working on the manuscript for High School’s Not Forever.
2005
We put the finishing touches on the manuscript for High School’s Not Forever. and it goes into publication. Less than 24 hours later I make contact with an incredible editor at Corwin Publishing and begin what I hope will be a long, productive and prosperous relationship with them. Plans for a 3rd edition of the Discipline book begins.
Sign contract with Corwin publishers for new editions of 21st Century Discipline and Being a Successful Teacher.
Release of new book, High School’s Not Forever; creation of dedicated Web site for new book.
I make the shift from overheads to PowerPoint. I start using a slide show to welcome participants to my seminars and presentations. I include pictures of my own students from years past, as well as pictures I’ve taken of kids around the world.
I decide to cut back on my speaking engagements and for the first time since starting my business, block off two months between mid-November and mid-January. I actually decline work during this time to give me some time to recharge for the coming year. Although I am home, I spend the entire “break” working on a complete overhaul of 21st Century Discipline for the third edition.
2006
I bring back the Book of Article Reprints after having let it go out of print for several years. I include updated versions of all 20 of the articles that are available individually, plus several new articles that have previously been seen in only very limited release.
Complete the revisions on 21st Century Discipline. In the meantime we are running out of copies of the existing (2nd edition) book. I spend much of the summer laying out a nearly-identical version of the second edition in order to fill existing orders and maintain the book’s availability until the 3rd edition is released in December.
I take an actual winter break and don’t spend it writing another book but instead kick back and hang with friends, read, take crafts classes, cook, and do stuff like a normal person. Sort of.
2007
After weeks of getting nowhere trying to get the rights back to 21st Century Discipline, I decide, for sanity’s sake to take what was to have been the 3rd edition in a different direction. We scuttle the old contract and agree to bring out a new book, The Win-Win Classroom, instead.
Just as The Win-Win Classroom nears its release date, Corwin invites me to do a Facilitator’s Guide to go with it. They also ask me to submit a proposal for the next book. I put together an outline for a new book for beginning teachers, tentatitvely entitled Becoming a Win-Win Teacher.
I reorganize and expand my blogs.
2008
I hire a Search Engine Optimization consultant and realize that this site is due for another overhaul—both visually and structurally. Update Meta data, add Analytics, and begin recreating each of the nearly 700 pages in this site, eliminating the frames and tables and using CSS positioning instead. New colors, new graphics, and simpler navigation and my page rank begins to improve immediately.
Publication and release of The Win-Win Classroom Facilitator’s Guide. Contract for a book for beginning teachers. Several false starts on this book as I struggle to give it a voice and direction.
2008 also saw the return of the rights to Daily Riches, which I tweaked and reorganized a bit, and with a brand new, gorgeous cover design, re-released this book as Magic, Miracles and Synchronicity: A Journal of Gratitude and Awareness. Of course, this required a new Web site, which I started and will continue to work on as I can.
I started taking Italian language classes and at the end of October, headed (with Jerry) to Milan where we rented a car and spent the next week and a half visiting Lake Como, Pisa, Florence, Bologna (where we hooked up with a friend I hadn’t seen from high school), Maranello, and back to Milan to meet up with two friends from Albuquerque. The following day included a couple highlights of Milan (the Duomo and the Last Supper) and a train ride to Genoa where we left on a fabulous Geek cruise of the Mediterranean, with stops in Naples (Pompeii and Sorrento), Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey, and Greece. (Click here for the photo gallery.) The trip ended with a couple days in Nice with a return through Monaco, although we were both sick by then, and considerably slowed down.
2009
In July, two speaking engagements in Singapore tie in with a trip to Beijing for another Geek cruise, this one to totally new and unfamiliar places including South Korea and two cities in Japan (Fukuoka and Nagasaki), followed by two and a half magnificent days in and around Beijing. (Click here for the photo gallery.)
After a week on the road for my biggest client, the Bureau of Education and Research for the previous ten years, I’ve decided I need a break from the pace that work demands. A hard call in a hard economy, but it was just time and I have to trust the signals I’m getting.
But by far the focus for 2009 was completing Becoming a Win-Win Teacher. This project becomes all-consuming, especially when I’m home. I pretty much stop all my crafting as my studio gathers dust while I write, and other than a bit of swimming and weights for a few weeks in the summer, or walks with the dog that get shorter and slower as he passes his 14th birthday in July, I’m getting no exercise at all.
After months of wrestling with tons of research, ideas, notes, and interview data for a new book for beginning teachers, I finally find a voice and rhythm I can live with. The entire year is consumed with the creation of this book. As always, it turns out bigger than expected, but unlike the direction I thought it would take initially, it squarely addresses some of the political issues new teachers often face, as well as reasons we leave the profession, why we stay, what we learned that doesn’t work, and what we have since found that does. By the end of the year, I’m in the first rush of editorial exchanges and totally exhausted.
2010
The year starts out with our having to say goodbye to Shadow, our amazing, 14-and-a-half-year-old dog. (Months later, I’m still not over the experience, gentle and humane—and necessary—as it may have been. Devastating.)
Heavy deadlines add to the stress, but ultimately lead to the April 25 release of Becoming a Win-Win Teacher. I am much relieved.
I am on vacation with Jerry in the Galapagos when the book comes out, so I don’t see it until I get back. I’m very happy with how it turned out.
My vacation is followed by speaking engagements in eastern Canada (my first job in the Maritimes) and Singapore and then I take the summer off. It’s the first time in years that I’ve been home and not on a book deadline. I spend a month watching World Cub matches and start going back to the gym and pool several times a week.
In between, I’m working on improvements to this site (mostly just making some small corrections and additions) and revising Parents in a Pressure Cooker for a download and print-on-demand book. Other projects on deck: an mp3 download version of the TeacherTapes (which are partly done and ready for upload by mid-July).
It is also in 2010 that I finally find the originals for Booster Shots (elementary and secondary versions), a product that was discontinued and which I was finally able to revise in digital format.
Another digital project that started taking shape during this time was the multi-language versions of “Pads” on the Back, now available as a reproducible download. By the end of the year, we have nearly 20 languages available.
2011
The year begins with an amazing trip to Argentina. After a couple days in Buenos Aires, we go to Iguazu Falls, and then back to Buenos Aires for a 12-day MacMania “Geek Cruise” to Santiago, Chile (with stops in the Falkland Islands, Uruguay, Ushuaia, and Puerto Mont, a trip around the Horn, and a tour of the Chilean fjords and Glacier Alley). Absolutely amazing.
For the second time in a row, I miss the post-cruise excursion to Machu Picchu in favor of a job in Canada, this one in Calgary (for a great group I just couldn’t turn down).
Work is relatively slow, but I’m busy through the end of May and looking forward to some time to start on some projects I’ve been wanting to get to.
Jerry has turned 62 and since he wasn’t even on the books for 2009, officially retires. His role changes from Business Manager to Helpful Spouse. April brings my 60th birthday. Retirement discussions seem more frequent but every time I start thinking about hanging up my “Dr. Jane” hat, I end up thinking of another project I want to do.
In July I sign a contract with Energize Students (which had been New Hope Charitable Foundation, a group that had supported my work for the past several years) to sponsor a series of podcasts. I record the first of the Spectrum Podcast programs with my friend, Dr. Lulu Lopez and by years’ end, had a half-dozen shows ready for launch.
I am invited to edit a kind of “greatest hits” book about classroom management for Corwin. In the fall, The Best of Corwin: Classroom Management is released.
The “Pads” on the Back Template project grows with the addition of Korean, Russian, Latvian, and Tagalog templates. I decide to offer the product for free to anyone who wants them. The search for more translators continues.
I take two classes in book publishing with InDesign, the second one on ePublishing. I have identified at least a half-dozen projects that need to head in this direction, although I am starting to realize that the intricacies of this new field will probably require help.
Health concerns prompt a finally-serious commitment to diet and exercise. Althought not entirely resolved, by years’ end I’ve dropped 50 pounds.
2012
The year begins with the realization that I am not going to get anywhere with the projects I want to develop without some outside help. Work is slow and my cash flow is tighter than it’s been in more than a decade, but I commit to hiring help for another Web site redesign (with new features I have forgotten how to code), the beginning of a monthly Newsletter (which I’ve been wanting to do since I started this site), and ePublishing several resources (which I will probably farm out once I get them laid out, or at least in PDF form).
I launch the first four podcasts on a redesigned multimedia Presentations page.
I begin meetings with a new Web designer and, with the help of a marketing expert, begin brainstorming ideas for the newsletter and revised site architecture.
*This is probably more information than anyone needs to know about me. I think I developed this page to give myself a better sense of perspective about where I was at the time, and also to note what I had accomplished over the years—something I often lose sight of as I move from one project to another. The photo collage is for my mom.
Other information about Dr. Jane Bluestein:
Jane’s Schedule or Map with links to show when Jane will be in your area.
Jane’s Speaking and Media Resumes (a map with links to states and other areas in which Jane has spoken, including media interviews for each location)
Press Kit: a PDF including Jane’s Resume, Speaking Resume, and Media Resume
Press Clippings: a PDF with interviews and articles in newspapers and other print media
Testimonials: What People are Saying about Jane Bluestein
Script for introducing Jane to her audience
Media Questions and Media Policy
Download a photo for your event promotion or article
Listen and Watch: Dr. Bluestein’s presentations online.
Presentation and Interview Topics
Resources: Books, Audio, Video and other resources by Dr. Jane Bluestein
What Jane’s been up to (index of all blog pages)
Jane’s Calendar
Click here (or on the image to the left) to see Jane’s schedule. Click here for a map with links to dates that she will be in your area.
Direct links to free stuff on this site:
articles and excerpts • handouts • materials in Spanish and French • videos and podcasts • links to other sites and resources • ideas, tips, and experiences of other educators • humor and fun
