For the Love of Learning: About Morrow Learning

It’s hard to know where to begin with this story. I guess it has to start with my mother. She knew she wanted to be a teacher from the second grade and never wavered from her mission as an educator. She grew up in a big, poor family who all thought her dreams of going to college were pie in the sky, until she won a scholarship.

Gloria Melve (later Morrow), attended college to become a high school business teacher (bookkeeping, shorthand, typing), but in her 34-year career she taught people of all ages, from Head Start kids to night school adults. She was “Grammar Queen” in two languages and ended up teaching English and Spanish classes much of the time. Although Spanish was her first language, later, other English teachers came to her when they weren’t sure of the answers. She taught students the same way she did everything else, with extreme determination, passion, and creativity. She taught me to read way before I ever went to school and kept hundreds of books around the house.

My dad was a minister and became a teacher a little later in life. He’s one of those people everyone loves and respects because he’s such a stellar example of a human being. He’s probably the most honest and sincere person I’ve ever known. He taught older elementary and middle school children and could find humor where many people would only find annoyance in the mystifying behavior of preteens.

My parent’s influence was very strong among our extended family. After the two of them forged the way (as the first to go to college in their families and as people who sincerely believed in helping others), many of my cousins and aunts and uncles on both sides followed suit. We now have many college graduates, and a number of teachers, counselors, social workers and others who are in service-oriented occupations.

I tried my best to steer away from education by majoring in journalism. I was so much like my mother that, as a teenager, I felt the need to differentiate myself from her. No way was I going to become a teacher. Yet, somehow, I was drawn into similar fields, such as training adults and non-profit work.

But when my daughter was born, I needed to stop traveling and do something a little more family friendly. My parents were retiring from teaching, so I thought we’d open a K-12 learning center. They were going to teach the kids; I was going to do everything else.

The next thing you know, we had too many kids for the two of them, so I began stepping in. As it turned out, I had a special knack for teaching reading. Being extremely auditory makes it hard to enjoy football games and carnivals, but it’s great for teaching kids phonics. My mother was quite pleased of course, but insisted she knew it all along.

Over the next couple of years, I honed our reading program, attempting to find the formula that got the optimal results in the quickest times. That might not seem like good business if you’re getting paid by the month (after all, the big franchise learning centers seem to try to drag the process out as long as possible). However, around the time we opened Morrow Learning, schools had started flunking 1st and 3rd graders like crazy, holding them back so that “no child would be left behind.” Once I realized this blow to their self-confidence was rarely necessary if they learned to read correctly, I had to do what I could to make them promotable as quickly as possible.

I like to believe you get what you give in life, and as word of our results got around, we received a steady stream of referrals from grateful moms.

However, the job wasn’t quite as family-friendly as I’d hoped. I needed to be there during the daytime hours when parents usually contacted us. However, I also needed to be there in the afternoon/evening hours when kids came in for testing and tutoring. My four-year-old daughter had long since gotten over the novelty of going to work with mommy. She wanted to be home and she wanted me there with her. During this time, I’d also suffered from a myriad of minor health issues and worsening sleep problems. When the lease came up for renewal, we decided to move out.

We still had unfinished students, though, so they all followed us a few blocks away to my house where my dad and I worked with them. My mother decided she wanted to go back to teaching in public schools. Over the next couple of years, more students kept coming, referred by the parents of previous students. Meanwhile, my odd health problems continued, but I couldn’t turn away children who couldn’t read, especially since they didn’t have any affordable options that I knew of. I somehow managed to home school my daughter through first grade, using the same reading programs as I did for the kids I tutored. In March of her first grade year, standardized tests (given elsewhere) showed her at fourth grade reading level.

Sometime after that (I’ve blocked out the exact dates), my mother’s cancer, from eleven years before, returned, and she died within a year. My dad was heartbroken and decided to move back Louisiana to be with his aging parents and his brothers and sisters.

I decided I wasn’t up for the job any longer. I was going from doctor to nutritionist to acupuncturist, trying to figure out what was wrong with me and how to fix it. I discontinued the business phone line that had been transferred from my house. A few determined moms still tracked me down. Once these children were finished, I stopped tutoring altogether.

Now, a couple of years later, I’m doing much better and back to helping kids read again. When I told my 12-year-old daughter what I was planning, she said, “Okay! I want to help!” (She taught one of her six-year-old cousins to read when she was seven. He went from “special ed” candidate to “gifted and talented” almost overnight.)

My dad is “retired” in Louisiana and has remarried. Every time I call him, he and his relatives are digging a well, building a hothouse, raising a barn… (Okay, they weren’t actually raising a barn, but I wouldn’t put it past them.) When he’s not there, he’s camping or at church activities.

I’m keeping the name Morrow Learning in honor of the people who made it possible, and in respect for their legacy, the thousands of children over 34 years who were influenced by their care and efforts.