Shirley McPhillips
Shirley McPhillips
Shirley was born and grew up in Virginia. She began her teaching career in Alexandria, Virginia, and later moved to New York City with her husband, an actor who was playing Off Broadway at the time. She began teaching in Tenafly, New Jersey, following her sister, who taught there. On interviewing her, the principal said, "If you're half as good as your sister. . .!" That raised the bar considerably.
During the late '60s, early '70s, when people were "dropping out of society" and moving "back to the land," she and her husband bought a dairy farm in upstate New York and moved there with one-year-old son Sean. Shirley taught elementary school in a small hillside school with cattle on the hill and a stream running by. She was asked to design her own job as a Cooperating Teacher for kindergarten through sixth grade. That was the first hint that she might like staff development.
On returning to Tenafly seven years later, she became liaison from the district to the Writing Project at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York, founded by Lucy Calkins. Over the years she attended weekly staff development sessions there, taught in summer institutes, and led various study groups for teachers. In 1996 she became codirector of the Reading/Writing Project at Teachers College. A few years later she decided to carve out more time for her own reading and writing life and began to work as a freelance literacy consultant.
At that time she and poet Nick Flynn (who had worked at TC as a writer in residence and teacher in the city) collaborated on a book for Stenhouse called A Note Slipped Under the Door: Teaching From Poems We Love, which came out in the year 2000. They combined all their love for teaching and poetry into this book for educators.
At the moment, Shirley works as a literacy consultant mostly in New Jersey and in areas around New York City. She has, for many years, presented in various school districts across the country and at major conferences and conventions including NRA, NCTE, Metropolitan School Study Council, NY.
Besides the book with Nick Flynn, she has published in such publications as Language Arts magazine, Instructor, and Journal of Adolescent Literacy. At present she is a contributor to Choice Literacy online under the direction of Brenda Power. And she is working on a book about using student work to teach young poets. She keeps a notebook of lines and thoughts and fashions poems at odd moments. Poetry brings her moments alive, and keeps them. Staff development enriches her life. Being among people at the point of learning is the most moving place to be.
"Helping people find something of interest, of meaning, some deep understanding that resonates in their lives so that they bring that inspiration to their students is motivation enough for me to continue. Above all, we need inspiration."
