"I teach students that knowledge is power," says Cynthia MacLeod, who teaches fourth- and fifth-graders at Sabin Elementary School, an inner city early-childhood education center in Portland. In an effort to counteract the loss of time incurred each time a class becomes acquainted with a new homeroom teacher, Mrs. MacLeod chose to follow her fourth-graders to fifth grade. Her strategy, dubbed the "flip-flop classroom" in the building, eases the transition out of mixed-age early classes to middle school single-age classes. Mrs. MacLeod praises the model for providing students with a much-needed sense of stability. As co-director of a Portland site of the Oregon Writing Project, a developer of the Language Arts Framework for the Portland School District and a member of the Department of Education's cultural-diversity awareness training program, Mrs. MacLeod has often helped shape education in her state and community.
1973 Eastern Oregon State College, B.A.
