Making Her Case With Class : Education: Former corporate lawyer finds a new calling teaching elementary pupils at Meadows School in Thousand Oaks.

After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1991, Shannon Biggs spent several years striking deals with large corporations as an associate in a Boston law firm.

These days, she writes poems and works math problems with 9-year-olds in Thousand Oaks.

Standing before her class at Meadows School one recent morning, Biggs pointed to an assortment of yellow pieces of paper stuck to a board in front of the class. Each paper contained a noun, adjective or verb that would end up in the class poem.

“Which would you rather have with the word painter ?” she asked, lowering her voice to nearly a whisper as she looked around the room. “Colors or oils?”

One student instead suggested the word brushes , and Biggs rushed over to the board to rearrange the papers into a phrase using the student’s choice instead of hers.

The idea of patching together a poem collectively caught on as Biggs worked with the students. They had groaned when she first told them they were going to create a poem that morning.

But they ended up staying in class during the first few minutes of recess to complete it.

After practicing law for four years, Biggs decided last summer to switch careers and take a $60,000 pay cut to become an elementary school teacher.

Her first full-time teaching job is at Meadows, where she instructs pupils who stand barely a head shorter than she.

“In order to make a difference, you have to be here,” said Biggs, who still sports the expensive silk jackets and colorful scarves from her attorney days. “You have to be in the classroom.”

The urge to teach struck her last summer, when her husband was away on business. She started reading education reform books and immediately enrolled in the University of Massachusetts to get her teaching credential.

“My husband was devastated,” Biggs said. “I called him up and said, ‘Guess what I’m gonna do? I’m going to quit my job and become a teacher.’ ”

Biggs said the couple ate a lot of soup after she gave up her $80,000-a-year job last year to enroll in college and work as a training teacher in private schools in the Boston area.

They moved out to California this year, so her husband could teach law at Pepperdine University, and Biggs took a job at Meadows.

It has only been two months since Biggs started her first full-time teaching job, but already she knows she has made the right decision.

“I’m never tired,” Biggs said. “And I work as late and as long as I used to.” Surrounded by bulletin boards featuring her students’ essays and science projects, Biggs fluttered around the room, stopping at each raised hand to read poems.

Meadows Principal Timothy Stephens said bringing in a teacher from the outside world has many advantages.

“She brings a real work ethic to the table,” he said. “She’s always the first to arrive and the last to leave.”

Stephens also tells the story of Biggs and a stray dog that wandered onto the school grounds.

He said that Biggs called the owners listed on the dog tag several times, but got no answer. After the school day was over, she walked the dog to its home, which was more than a mile away from the school.

“She has compassion for children and animals,” Stephens said. “And she cares deeply about her kids.”

Although Biggs said she is having the time of her life, many of her friends still ask her when she is returning to law.

“They think I’m crazy,” Biggs said.

But if they think she is crazy now, they should wait a few more years. Biggs repeatedly says that she wants to teach in a low-income neighborhood, perhaps in the Los Angeles Unified School District, once she has a little more experience.

That is where she really thinks she will find fulfillment.

“I’ve never been unhappy, but when I was a lawyer, I didn’t love it,” Biggs said. “I love this, and life is too short not to do something you love.”