THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 4, 1995 TAG: 9508030169
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
WHEN JEAN GORDON started teaching business education more than 30 years ago, typewriters were manual, copies were made on mimeograph machines and a good stenographer was worth her weight in gold fountain pens.
Now with typewriters gone from most offices, mimeograph machines relegated to museums and stenography an almost lost art, Jean Gordon is teaching the new skills while occasionally mourning some of the old.
``I'm so sorry that stenography has lost its way,'' she said as she reflected on her teaching career on a recent hot afternoon.
If it sounds as though the longtime First Colonial High School faculty member, who was recently named Virginia Vocational Teacher of the Year, is stuck in a world that no longer exists, rest assured she isn't.
She is keenly aware that rapid changes in business technology and the increasing importance of a global marketplace mean that one of the main challenges for business educators is keeping current about what their students need to know.
``I took 11 courses in one year a couple of years ago,'' Gordon said. ``They weren't semester courses, but they did run to 10 to 12 sessions.''
Taking courses is not the only way the Alanton resident keeps current in her field.
For the past 10 years, she has devoted a lot of time to her professional organization, the National Business Education Association. Currently, she is serving as president of the group's southern division.
It's mission, to make the public more aware of the need for and the benefits of a business education, is one in which she firmly believes.
And she has a lot of concern about changes in attitudes toward what was once considered a very honorable alternative to a college education.
``I'm not sure it's all coming from the students,'' she said. ``These days the parents put so much emphasis on their children going to (four year) colleges.''
What really concerns her is that while there is still a great demand for well-trained office support staff and while high schools and community colleges are well-equipped to provide the training, many students are not taking advantage of the opportunities.
Gordon sees business courses as being extremely useful, even for those students who will be going on to traditional colleges and universities.
``They're all going to need to know how to use computers for something other than video games,'' she said, adding that there is much more than just computer knowledge to be learned in business classrooms.
``We teach them how to keyboard, write checks, balance checkbooks, work with groups and make decisions. There's nothing in our curriculum that they can't use in their everyday life,'' Gordon explained.
That need to know how to use computers has already made a major change in Gordon's classes.
``We get a lot more boys in them now,'' she said with a laugh.
Students, male or female, are very important to Gordon. ``I never had any desire to go into administration,'' she said, ``I've always wanted to be right where the students are.''
Even her marriage to her husband, Jack, was the result of a well-timed intervention on the part of one of her former students back in Pennsylvania. ``She worked part-time in Jack's office and she was very concerned about me because I was 25 years old and still didn't even have an engagement ring,'' Gordon said. ``She asked Jack if he was married and when she found out that he wasn't, she fixed us up.''
They were married 32 years ago and have one son, Stephen, a University of Virginia engineering graduate who will be getting married in October. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
The need to know how to use computers has already made a major
change in Jean Gordon's business classes at First Colonial High.
``We get a lot more boys in them now,'' she said.
by CNB