Marge Christensen Gould

Marge Christensen Gould

Marge Christensen Gould is a high school English teacher with 31 years of classroom experience teaching English, special education, gifted education, journalism, and mass media. For the past 18 years she has taught and coordinated an alternative literacy and workplace skills program for at-risk students, funded by the Arizona Supreme Court and the Tucson Unified School District. She is the author of a case study, Reclaiming At-Risk Youth for the 21st Century Workplace, and two books relating to literacy skills and at-risk students. Because her restructured classroom has always been an example of a small learning community, Marge was named co-chair of the Smaller Learning Communities Committee at her school.

Marge has developed sessions for educators that stress ways of restructuring classrooms and creating small learning communities. Her sessions familiarize participants with the rationale of her program for creating a student-centered, success-oriented classroom atmosphere in which varying learning styles are accommodated, and in which students perceive themselves as possessing dignity and integrity while being given the opportunity to feel successful and competent.

Programs that have been based on Marge’s model have been implemented in several states. As a result, Marge has been awarded several honors. She was named to the 2000 All USA First Teacher Team (comprising the top 20 teachers in the USA); and was named Teacher of the Year (from the University of Arizona/Circle K); and Outstanding Arizona Educator (presented by America West Airlines and the Phoenix Suns); and was given the Arizona School Board Association Golden Bell Award, First Place for Grades 9–12 (for improving student achievement).

Presentations by Marge Christensen Gould

• Reclaiming At-Risk Youth for the 21st Century Workplace
• Developing Literacy and Workplace Skills: Teaching for 21st Century Employment
• Motivational English for At-Risk Youth