Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995                   TAG: 9501070023
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: G-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KEN DAVIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

FOR ONCE IN THEIR LIVES, THESE PUPILS ARE EQUALS

She walks silently in front of a small, hard-to-please audience at Blacksburg's Kipps Elementary School, measuring their faces.

The lecture began from a comparison made between male and female elementary students, and Wood is quick to give an impassioned address when her opinion is requested.

"Do you notice how I always call on a boy and then a girl?" she asks a skeptic in the back. "Do you notice how I call on someone who might know and then someone who might not know? I do that for a reason. We are all equal here."

Regardless of the discussion's serious nature, Wood was not talking to School Board members, parents or other teachers.

She was talking to her pupils.

"Being right all the time and having all the advantages doesn't help you grow," she continued. "It takes the struggles in life to help you grow and help you learn."

It's a point Wood knows from experience.

In the late 1960s, Wood, her cousin and two brothers were the first black students in her home of Augusta County to be integrated into the previously all-white school system.

She can still vividly remember the abuse, aggression and cruelty from students and teachers alike - abuse that didn't let up from elementary school to her high school graduation.

"I know what it's like to be thrown into somebody's classroom and be treated like a piece of dirt," she said, her hand lovingly patting the shoulder of one of her students. "You did what you had to do and went on."

Nearly 20 years after being told by a high school guidance counselor that she would never make it through college, Wood received her masters degree from Virginia Tech Dec. 18 in educational administration.

She hopes to one day work as a principal in a school like Kipps - one that teaches all students equally, regardless of their race, religion or level of mental, emotional and physical development.

Ray VanDyke, principal of Kipps Elementary School, says Wood is a role model for other educators.

"She's really something," he said. "I think sometimes visitors don't exactly understand her teaching style - she doesn't pull any punches. Her students understand, though. They learn from her and they love her."

The feeling is mutual.

"If I never became a principal and stayed in a classroom, I'd be happy," Wood said, holding a picture a student drew for her in honor of her graduation. "I love my children."