Educator takes creative approach in classroom

Jerri Lejeune Jerri Lejeune's name fits her personality perfectly: Lejeune is French for the "young one."

A sixth-grade teacher at Santa Rosa Technology Magnet School, Lejeune said that she is "58 going on 12."

Lejeune was honored as an Educator of the Month by the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce for her work in the classroom. In addition to teaching English and ancient history, Lejeune also guides an elective art class and is the school's activities director.

"Every day is different," she said. "Sixth-graders are halfway between children and adults. They start to have an adult sense of humor. And they're still very honest in their feelings."

Lejeune has taught at Santa Rosa for four years. She has been a teacher 14 years overall in the Pleasant Valley School District, including 10 as a sixth-grade teacher.

The Santa Rosa instructor didn't start her professional career in the classroom.

She tried several majors before graduating in art history at Occidental College.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do," she said.

Lejeune was a drawbridge operator on the Sacramento River, a freight rate negotiator for Southern Pacific Railroad (now Union Pacific Railroad) and a stay-at-home mom.

She then became heavily involved as a parent volunteer in her children's classes.

"I was living in the school," Lejeune joked.

She earned a degree in liberal studies and a teaching credential from California State University Northridge. She got her first teaching job the same year her son Edward, now 32, graduated from Thousand Oaks High School.

Lejeune has two other children: Deborah, 29, an artist, and David, 27, a professional video game tester.

At Santa Rosa, Lejeune has been responsible for designing curricula and helping students complete assignments on their own laptop computers.

One of her favorite assignments involves students blogging as fictional characters traveling the Silk Road through Western China and Northern Pakistan.

Her sixth-graders were also expected to bury chicken mummies on Thursday as part of a five-month project.

By cleaning out and drying storebought chickens and creating amulets for the mummies' sarcophagi, students learn about the process of mummification in ancient Egypt. Her classes hope to dig up and find chickens that were buried on campus two years ago by the current eighth-graders.

"Between the sprinklers and gophers, we might be lucky to find anything . . . maybe some bandages," said Lejeune, who also taught at El Descanso Elementary and Monte Vista Middle schools.

Lejeune teaches a creative writing class in the summers for fourth-through-ninth-graders. Sponsored by UC Santa Barbara's South Coast Writing Project, the class is held at California Lutheran University.

Although she has a master's degree in leadership and policy studies from CSUN, Lejeune isn't ready to begin working as an administrator.

"I'm not ready to leave the classroom," she said