Sherry Sizemore, the new supervisor of world languages for the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District, has taught Chinese in the district for the past 11 years. Originally from Missouri, Sizemore has lived in West Windsor for the past 23 years with her husband, Dan Gerstenhaber, and daughters Stephanie, 27, and Brittany, now 24.
Her reasons for moving to West Windsor are quite familiar: both she and her husband were working in New York and living in Jersey City, and wanted to move to an area that was still accessible to the city and also a good place to raise their children.
But the journey she took to becoming a Chinese language teacher was anything but familiar. When she was 18, her father, who was a professor of world religion, Hebrew, and the Old Testament at Georgetown University and the Midwestern Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, took a sabbatical in Taiwan, and Sizemore accompanied him. Instead of starting at Jewell College as she had intended, she spent her freshman year in Taiwan, where she became immersed in Mandarin Chinese.
“I had a real knack for the language — I could speak it without an accent. It is actually a parlor trick — I can mimic the way languages are spoken, so I learned to speak with any sort of accent. Then I earned a scholarship to study at Oxford University in England, where I took English Literature and Chinese. It was 1975, the Year of the Woman. This was the 10th year that the scholarship program was in existence, and they had never chosen a woman, so I was the first woman ever picked.”
After graduating from Jewell College with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, Chinese, and political science, Sizemore attended Columbia University, where she first earned a master’s degree in Mandarin, and then switched from the PhD track to earn a master’s of international affairs (MIA) with a specialization in China and Chinese.
“While I was at Columbia, I wrote a position paper for Mayor Ed Koch, who was traveling to China, on the US/China textile trade. It was very exciting — I got to meet the mayor and have my picture taken. So I decided to work for the government, and got a job with the New York City Department of Ports and Terminals (now part of the Port Authority of NY and NJ). I was a port promotion specialist, which was an extremely fun job. I traveled to ports, gave speeches, and met all sorts of people. I then took a position as the associate director in charge of the port directory for a port magazine, the International Thompson Transport Press.”
Sizemore stayed with the port until her children were born. Later, when her daughters were older, she became a substitute teacher for the WW-P district, especially for Chinese classes. “Then a position for a long-term sub opened up, for an elementary school Chinese class,” she says. “I took over the class for two months, and realized I wanted to be a teacher. So I applied, and I was hired to teach Chinese.”
Her mother’s story is just as interesting. For her first teaching job, her mother taught all eight grades in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Missouri. “I use her as an example to my students, many of whom think every school in the U.S. is like the schools in West Windsor-Plainsboro,” says Sizemore. “I tell them about my mother’s experiences. She went on to get a degree and became an elementary school teacher, then stayed home to raise her four children. She decided to return to work, and worked for Head Start in the Kansas City area. Through the church we attended at the time, she founded a much respected non-profit preschool for underprivileged kids. After my father passed away, she became the dean of women at a small college for a year, and then became the dean of students at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina.”
Sizemore says she comes from “an education family — I am sure I inspired my two daughters to learn Chinese, and they are both fluent. My older daughter lived in Beijing for four years, and my younger daughter lived there for a year. She now works for the University of Houston as an international admissions counselor, and my older daughter works for ELS authenticating Chinese documents for universities. So they both work in the academic field, even though they aren’t teachers — yet,” she added.
When asked why she decided to become a supervisor, Sizemore explained that she had been inspired by several administrators, especially new Community Middle School Principal Shauna Carter. “She urged me to take on more responsibility. I had mentored teachers and taught some teacher workshops here and at the state level, and Shauna said I should be teaching other teachers to do what you do.’ So I decided to go beyond what I was doing and help other teachers grow. I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave the classroom, because being in the classroom is the fun part of being a teacher.”
What settled it for her: “I decided I could help even more students, those who struggle or need extra guidance, and have a broader impact as a supervisor. So here I am,” she says.
“The world languages department is incredibly strong, which made it an easier decision. I can say that because I didn’t build it. It was built by Carol Meulener and Rosanne Zeppieri, the former supervisors. All I need to do is build on the fabulous department that we already have. We have also always been very strong in terms of teacher assessments. We had already been doing them, so the new assessment policy will not be as difficult as it might otherwise have been.”
Sizemore commented on the recent district survey of parents and students regarding possible changes to the world languages curriculum (see sidebar page 24).
“Of course no decisions have been made yet, but it is important to me to consider the needs/wants of the community,” she says. “In general, I am a proponent of language immersion programs and believe that starting children in language immersion at a young age provides advantages to brain development beyond just being bilingual.”
Sizemore cites a recent article in Time magazine about the benefits of a “bilingual brain.” But, she adds, “I stress that no decisions about immersion programs have been made yet, and I haven’t even talked to [Assistant Superintendent] Martin Smith about the results of the survey. I have only been in this position for a few weeks. But I can say that any immersion program would be completely voluntary. Only parents who wished to have their children participate would be placed in immersion classrooms.”
“One potential change that I might like to implement would be to introduce more cultural experiences to the world language program. Individual teachers do some of this, but I would like to see it expanded for all students. However, I am cognizant of budget constraints and am not sure how feasible this would be. I would also like to include the WW-P community in more of our events. We have such strong parental and community support and I would like to tap into that.”
“As a teacher, I really appreciated the support we receive from parents. Not long ago, a father of one of the AP Spanish students came to the school on his lunch break to pick up a textbook. He saw me and said, ‘I want to thank you — world languages is such a great program and you all do so much for our children.’ That is a perfect example of how fabulous our department is, and how appreciated we are, and I consider myself very lucky to be the new supervisor,” says Sizemore.
