We just learned recently that my daughter Maggie and her boyfriend, David, have become engaged, and are planning to be married next January, 2001! David is such a nice young man. I told Maggie recently that I had always wanted a son, and David will become the son, that I always wanted.
I'm a Vocational Adjustment Coordinator at Scarborough High School in Houston Independent School District. I have taught grade Kindergarten through 6, and 9 through 12, and worked at a state hospital with long term handicapped residents. I am interested in Computer Education, English/Literature, Vocational Education, and Psychology, and Educational Psychology, with particular interests in Assessment, Gifted and Talented Education, Information-Gathering Projects, Integrated/Interdisciplinary Curriculum, Multi-Age Classrooms, Multicultural Education, Online Field Trips, Special Education, and Bible Study.
I am taking a class called, "My First
Web Page," which is the reason that I'm doing this web page.
I have been teaching since 1968, in Texas, Nebraska, and Hawaii.
I have taught students with many disabilities, including students
who are emotionally disturbed, learning disabled, mentally
retarded, multiply impaired, orthopedically handicapped, visually
impaired, hearing impaired, other health impaired, from grades K
through adult. I have an interest in Guilford's theory of
multiple intelligences, learning theory, and assessment. I have
learned as much from my students as I hope they have learned from
me.
Hi! My name is Judy. I am from Houston, Texas, and am a Vocational Adjustment Coordinator, which is a fancy title for teaching Vocational classes to students with disabilities at a high school in Houston.
I graduated from University of Houston in 1968 in Drama. Before graduating, I also acted in several theatres in Houston. During my last year at the university, I met my future husband, Al Raneri, who was the most intelligent and fascinating man I had ever met. I had been going to school off and on for 5 years, working for a while, and going to school at the same time and acting in theaters around Houston and at the university. My minor was psychology, which could have become a second major, if I could just get through experimental psychology, which I didn't. Al persuaded me that I should go ahead and finish up the 12 hours that I needed to get my degree, and then look at other possible careers besides acting, which paid little or nothing in 1967 in Houston. I told him that I enjoyed psychology, learning about people's personalities, and that I loved children. Maybe I could combine the two in a new career. He mentioned the possibility of being a teacher, like my mother, a second grade teacher in Deer Park, Texas. I wasn't interested in teaching regular classes, but was very interested in working with children with disabilities, who would really need your help.
I graduated from the University of Houston,
University Park, with a degree in Drama, in May 1968, and began
taking education classes that summer in Special Education. I took
12 semester hours that summer, and got a job in September at a
Catholic elementary school in Bellaire, Texas, teaching the third
grade. I continued to take classes at night and during the summer.
The following year, I got a job as a second grade public school
teacher in the Aldine Independent School District, with an
emergency certificate. Al and I married that year, on October 18,
1969, one day before his birthday, and we went to Mexico City for
our honeymoon. I finished teaching there that year, and became
pregnant with our first child at the end of the school year. That
summer, in 1970, we found out that we would be transferring to
Hawaii, and our child would be born there. (To be continued....:)
You can usually find me on the internet as
soon as I get home from teaching school, until I go to bed at
night. I guess you could call me an internet junkie :). I have
met some great friends on IRC on Dalnet in #s.king.
When I'm not online, you can find me
curled up with a good book. My favorite authors are Stephen King,
Anne Rice, Brian Lumley, Peter Straub, John Grisham, and Tim
LaHaye. My favorite book by King is Bag of Bones. I am a
voracious reader, so have other authors that I follow. I love
Anne Rice and her Vampire Chronicles and Witching Hour Trilogy.
Brian Lumley was a master with his Necroscope series about
vampires. I became interested in Peter Straub when he and Stephen
King collaborated in The Talisman, and continued to read his
books. And also love Clive Barker, for his fantasy books.
I love all the people on #s.king on Dalnet;
indeed, they have become like an extended family for me. The
people there have been very warm and accepting, when I needed
someone to listen while I cried ed my heart out. Several of the
people who have met there have gone on to get married, overcoming
international barriers and the immigration process.
I lost my lost my husband and best friend a
little over nine years ago. But I also have two lovely daughters,
Maggie, age 25, a computer geek, and Leslie, age 29, a social
worker, both here in Houston now. These two are my most precious
gifts.
Leslie attended and graduated from Rice University on a National
Merit Scholarship, with an undergraduate degree in Sociology and
minors in Spanish and Linguistics. She went on to the University
of Texas, where she got her master's degree in Social Work. After
graduation, she took off for Chicago, and got a job working as a
pediatric AIDS social worker at Wyler Children's Hospital at the
University of Chicago. She moved back to Houston in 1998, and has
just returned from Africa, where she spoke to nursing and social
work professionals at conferences in South Africa, Botswana,
Swaziland, and Lesotho, about pediatric AIDS in a worldwide grant
to educate third world countries with the highest incidences of
AIDS in the world. Her employer at Texas Children's Hospital, Dr.
Mark Kline, has a grant to help people in other countries with
this terrible problem.
My youngest daughter, Maggie, was only 16 when
her dad died. She finished high school in Baytown, Texas, and
found an apartment for herself and me, when she decided to go to
the University of Houston. She had promised her dad that she
would take care of me if anything happened to him.
She attended the Honors College at the University of Houston, and majored in Psychology. She also volunteered in the Psychology department at the Victim's Resource Institute, going out in outreach to meet children at the parks, doing psychological assessments, and eventually designing a database for the department's psychological reports. Maggie recently graduated, and has a wonderful job at Compaq Computer here in Houston. She has met the nicest young man who also works at Compaq. They will be married in January of 2001.
I also have four wonderful step-children.
Marci, at age 44, is a computer graphics specialist in Arizona.
Mark would have been 43, if he hadn't died seven years ago, Tina,
42, is a draftsperson in North Carolina, and Tony, 41, who also
lives in North Carolina, is a construction contractor. These six
wonderful adult children are very special to me.
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http://www.insanitypepper.com
These are pictures of my daughter and her fiance. |
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http://www.securethefuture.com/
These are links to where Leslie has travelled in her work |
Please send me mail! My address is jraneri@swbell.net
.