About Me

Both my Bachelors Degree in English and my Masters in Education come from Westfield State College in Massachusetts. I have an additional 45 graduate level credits from Fairfield University, the University of Connecticut, and Central Connecticut State University. I completed my Sixth Year Degree in Educational Leadership at Central and received that certification in June of 2003.

This is my tenth year in Canton. I first joined the high school staff as an Advanced Placement Language and Composition teacher and the English Department Chair in 1996. Through the years, I have also taught 8th, 9th, and 10th grades, Creative Writing, Shakespeare, and AP Literature and Composition at the 12th grade level. One of my great joys was having designed and taught AP Humanities with Michael Broverman, the past Social Studies Department Chair.

For the past two years, I have worked in Central Office as Canton's Director of Curriculum and Instructional Technology. On July 1, 2006, that title was changed to Assistant Superintendent, an honor I intend to meet with diligence and attention to the teachers, students, and families in Canton. Together with the teaching staff at the district's four schools, we will continue to map and revise the full curriculum grades K - 12, to align the Science, Health, and Social Studies maps with the new State Standards, to focus intently on the reading and writing instruction at all levels, and to implement a variety of data collection tools to better improve instruction. This past spring we wrote, and now will put into action, Canton's federally-mandated 2006 - 2009 Technology Plan. In addition, we are phasing in a standards-based report card and several means of enhanced communications with parents... among many, many other projects. As an adjunct to my work in curriculum, I have spent five days of my "vacation" teaching curriculum mapping to over 1,000 teachers in the Southwest Regional District of San Antonio, Texas, and have worked with school districts on similar curricular projects in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Illinois. I can hardly believe how many opportunities I have enjoyed in so short a tenure in Canton!

Before coming to Canton, I was a teacher at East Granby High School for eight years and Suffield High School for three years before that. In 1993, I was East Granby's "Teacher of the Year" and the runner-up at the state level that same year. In 2002, I was presented with the same honor in Canton. In 1995, I won the Joseph Korzenik Fellowship for Holocaust Studies, which still remains the single most important event of my career in education. It took me to the International Conference for Holocaust Education, where I worked for eight days with teachers from the United States, Israel, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Poland to examine the way the world’s classrooms have responded to the Holocaust and still unresolved world-wide issues. It validated a path in teaching that I now affectionately think of as ‘teaching for a better world.’ My experiences and the people I have met since that award have forever altered the way I think of the world and my role in shaping it. While at the conference, I met and heard the stories of many survivors; and, I also experienced the unease that came with being targeted by the hate group which hovered around us.

Therefore, my approach to education and classroom teaching is values-based. Of course, it’s important that students read, write, speak, and listen well. It’s important that they problem-solve logically and work together effectively. It’s important that they take risks, think creatively, and communicate confidently with others. But, it’s not enough. The classroom is also a place for students to explore and define the values they hold dear. I expect that all educators also teach and represent honesty, hard-work, respect for others, empathy, self-advocacy, and personal accountability. Through the development of essential questions, the big picture in modern curriculum development addresses these issues just as effectively as it addresses skills.

Personally, I am the mother of two childen. My son Brad is 31, and lives in Greenville, SC, where he is a professional commercial photographer specializing in digital imaging. His new wife, Heather, is a financial manager. My daughter Cathy is 29; she is a full-time nursing student at American International College and the mother of my two grandchildren, Callie, age 9, who starts 5th grade in middle school this year, and Caleb, age 5, who is entering kindergarten. Cathy and her children live with me.

Though I am most interested in what is happening in our classrooms and therefore not always in the office, please feel free to email me at lmcmullin@cantonschools.org or call me at Central Office – 693-7704.