Teacher Gives Her Pupils a Head Start With History Course

Dorothy Odsen’s bright-eyed students are eager to read William Shakespeare. They write and publish their own short stories, and can discuss ancient civilizations with some comprehension. But they’re not college whiz kids or even high school honors students.

They’re typical El Monte sixth-graders who have an extraordinary teacher.

After a semester with Odsen, these 11- and 12-year-olds can tell you, for instance, that the doomed villagers of Pompeii and Herculaneum in ancient Rome were killed not only by hot lava when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in AD 79--but also by deadly gases from the volcano.

Nearly two years before a state-mandated ancient civilization requirement for sixth-graders goes into effect, Odsen already has designed and is teaching a course that meets the new standards for the 1991-92 school year.

“When I saw the new (state guidelines), I got excited about it because I had been to Greece and Rome and had bought a lot of books along the way,” Odsen said. “Usually in the sixth grade you teach Latin America and Canada. I myself had grown tired of this and decided not to wait two more years to get started.”

So she plunged right in, pioneering the development of a sixth-grade ancient history course at Charles E. Gidley Elementary School.

Last semester, to supplement her students’ knowledge of the ancients, Odsen, 53, turned them loose on a construction project.

Working in teams, they built models of an Egyptian pyramid and ancient country house, the Ishtar Gate, the Ziggurat of Ur, a Hittite house, the granary at Mohenjo-Daro and the tomb of King Tutankhamen (King Tut). Their building materials included milk cartons, tagboard, plastic foam and some toy figures.

“Years ago, when I was in school, they used to make you memorize dates for social studies, and that didn’t mean a thing,” said Odsen, who holds master’s degrees in education and art history and a Ph.D. in theater arts. “What we’re trying to do is get a feeling of what it was like then--because people are basically the same.”

Now the school district may follow Odsen’s lead. Barbara Gera, director of instruction, has requested her ancient civilization reading list and course outline and is deciding whether to make them part of the district curriculum.

Odsen is an advocate of cooperative education, a group approach to learning that in 1987 was incorporated into state teaching guidelines for reading, language arts and social studies.

In cooperative education, students work together instead of individually. Learning comes in part from the students’ exchange of ideas and opinions, not just from books and teachers’ lectures. Students are not grouped according to ability, but work together in diverse intellectual company.

“Studies have found that if a child couldn’t read, the child thought the whole world read as badly as they did,” Odsen said. “They never heard good reading, except by the teacher. They didn’t realize there were kids their own age who could read well, and so could they.”

School administrators say Odsen’s methods get results.

“She marches to her own drummer,” said Gidley Principal Stuart Dunn. “But she’s doing exactly what the state has asked. She’s ahead of the game. And her students, let me tell you, they know their stuff.

“We’re seeing kids with knowledge we’ve never seen before. And it doesn’t matter what level they’re at. They work together, so they have models to look at. Students are finding there are different ways of doing things.”

In 1989’s California Assessment Program tests, Odsen’s sixth-graders scored above the district average in reading, writing and math.

“Gidley School has excellent test scores, and Dr. Odsen’s class, too. Her kids wind up doing some fantastic things because she gives them the self-confidence to do very well,” said El Monte schools Supt. Jeffrey Seymure.

In an age of declining reading skills, Odsen also uses cooperative learning methods to introduce her sixth-graders to such literary masterpieces as “Julius Caesar” and “Romeo and Juliet” by Shakespeare, “The Premature Burial” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll.

“We thought it was going to be boring,” said Jeremy Martinez, 11. “But it’s interesting. We want to read more.”

Working from the actual texts--not condensed or children’s versions--her students read aloud, discuss authorial intent, and combine art with literature by painting watercolors of different scenes from “Julius Caesar.”

The students also write their own poems and horror stories. Then, using computers, they publish the works. The release of the sixth-grade anthology each semester is the literary event of the season. On Friday, Odsen will play host at her students’ biannual book-signing and poetry-reading tea party to honor the latest volume, “For Better or For Verse.”

“She does different things than I’ve done in the past,” said Jason Smith, 11. “We’ve studied archeology, and I’ve never done that before. She gets people interested.”

Jason’s mother, Beverly Smith, a sixth-grade teacher at another school, also gives Odsen high marks. “Dr. Odsen gears what she does in her classroom to stimulate and excite the students,” Smith said. “They look forward to what they’re going to do the next day.”

Odsen, who taught for five years in New York City before coming to El Monte in 1962, has a wry sense of humor and 13 years’ experience in the Chinese martial art tai chi chuan. She attained junior instructor status in the sport, and regularly writes for Black Belt magazine.

At one time she thought about becoming a college professor and almost gave up the profession altogether years ago.

“My husband, Albert, was an automotive teacher who raced motorcycles on the weekends. I was his pit crew. We were going to open an auto repair and parts shop. I was going to be the counter person and bookkeeper and he was going to do all the repairing,” she said.

But after her husband was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1970, Odsen decided to stay in teaching.

Now, though, after 32 years on the job, she’s once again thinking about moving on.

“I’m looking forward to when I’m 55 so I can retire. I don’t know anyone who’s ever taught for 34 years. I’ve been teaching since Sputnik (the first Soviet satellite) went up in 1957. Sometimes, when I talk about Julius Caesar, the kids probably wonder if I knew him.”