DATE: Saturday, November 22, 1997           TAG: 9711210082

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ALETA PAYNE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  134 lines

SATURDAY MORNING KIDS SHOW USES FUN, ADVENTURE TO TEACH

JENNIFER PULLEY is sitting in her classroom at Glenwood Elementary School mixing up a mess.

A banana peel, a little detergent, add water and stir. When the camera that's taping her ``experiment'' is turned from her face, she grimaces. But when she's on, you'd think Pulley's just created something spectacular.

``This week on `Brain Stew' we're mixing a little bit of this, a little bit of that on mixtures and solutions!'' she says.

Pulley's elastic face moves through a variety of expressions while taping the promo for her Saturday morning kids show. She jumps. She gestures. She never stops moving.

``So what is it? A mixture or a solution?'' Pulley asks the viewers out in television land.

Earlier in the day, she has handled a sick 9-year-old, an inaccurate clock and a math book with the wrong answers, all the time keeping up a light patter and holding her kids' focus while she prepped them for a science test and led them through the mysteries of front-end estimation.

When the mythical family for whom the class was helping estimate the cost of a fast-food dinner came up short of cash, the options were limited.

``They are either going to have to wash some dishes or go out to their car and scrounge up some more money,'' Pulley suggested. ``They sure didn't have enough money, did they Cynthia? Hmm, hmm, hmm.''

Whether in front of the camera or in front of a class, Pulley is what all good teachers are, at least in part - a performer. Five days a week, at Glenwood, she performs for 51 fourth-graders to whom she teaches social studies, science and math. And every Saturday morning at 9:30 on WTKR Channel 3, she's a teacher to thousands of students throughout Hampton Roads as the zany hostess with a lesson to share on the locally created and produced program ``Brain Stew.''

Not bad for an educator who took a roundabout route to the classroom and who worked two or three other jobs while she substitute taught trying to find a permanent post as a Beach school teacher.

``I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up,'' Pulley says now. ``I wasn't really sure.''

Born in Richmond, Pulley attended junior high and high school in Virginia Beach. And it was while at First Colonial that she found herself inspired by some of her teachers and she began to think about a career in education.

Pulley graduated from the University of Richmond with a degree in speech communication but a concentration in early education. Feeling the need to live somewhere other than Richmond or Virginia Beach, she headed to New Jersey with friends where she worked as a paralegal and tried unsuccessfully to find a teaching job in the New Jersey-New York-Connecticut area.

So, about year after she arrived, she headed back to the Beach where school officials offered her an interview and then a chance to sub. It would take eight months of substitute teaching while working multiple part-time jobs, but by the end of the next spring, Pulley was hired full-time to teach at Glenwood.

``I knew I was meant to be (a teacher),'' she says. ``At least, I had to try it.''

The path to the show was a little more direct. Pulley's husband, Michael Bibbo, had worked as director of a local hunting and fishing show for Channel 3 that is now on hiatus. Officials at the station were interested in meeting a new FCC mandate for kids programming in part with a locally produced show and approached him about it. A production manager at the station suggested Pulley get involved because of her background in teaching, so she interviewed and did a demo tape before the discussion ever turned to the program's format.

``We started throwing ideas around about the name. We started throwing around format,'' Pulley said. ``And we watched a lot of kids t.v..''

They decided they wanted good but different. And ultimately they decided to take as the show's theme the state's Standards of Learning which serves as the basis for practically everything that goes on in the classroom. The SOLs are the guidelines for everything a child should learn before completing the Virginia Public Schools, and while that might seem a lot to bite off in a half-hour children's show, to Pulley, it made perfect sense.

``I can take what I teach in the fourth-grade and expand on it,'' Pulley said. The topics are things she's dealt with as a teacher and now can explain to the larger classroom.

``I know what these kids need to learn and I know we need to teach them certain things to lead them into the next century,'' she said.

The show hit the airwaves in September and Michael Bibbo has remained the director.

But don't expect ``Brain Stew'' to be Ms. Pulley standing in front of a blackboard with a ruler and a piece of chalk.

If the topic is mammals, expect a trip to the zoo where talk with the elephant trainer is interspersed with important vocabulary like ``warm-blooded'' and ``live-birth.'' The music in the background is bouncy, the sounds affects are frequent and Pulley occasionally fights off a fit of the giggles as do the changing cast of school students who help her with experiments and on her trips.

In order to learn about aerodynamics, a trip to the Virginia Air and Space Center seems in order complete with explanations of lift, drag, thrust and gravity.

Even physical fitness is touched on. A segment on dolphins flows neatly into swimming for health.

And, for those hardy students who can't get enough on a Saturday morning, shows end with suggestions for more materials to read and study at the library.

Dressed in overalls or shorts, Pulley's resemblance to Jenny McCarthy may draw a second glance. And there's always the added pressure that her grandparents in Courtland, and all their neighbors, may be watching.

All of it is fast-paced, with lots of unusual camera angles and Pulley looking like she's having the time of her life.

``Saturday morning, they don't want to be near school,'' Pulley says. ``They don't want me to take them to school.''

But, if she can make learning a little wacky and adventurous, then they might not even realize what hit them.

``If they sit there for 30 minutes, there's not way they're not going to learn something,'' she says.

Barbara Hamm, executive director of news and programming at WTKR said it didn't make sense to create a show that wasn't fun and interesting.

``We could have come up with a different kind of program, but it would have been boring and kids wouldn't watch. We want learning to be fun.''

And people who know and work with Pulley said she probably couldn't have pulled off boring if she tried.

``She's so enthusiastic, vibrant. She's just a dynamo,'' said Susan Tolley, one of Glenwood's two principals. The students get a kick out of having the chance to be on the program.

``They get so excited. Their faces just beam.''

And even when the students are just having a typical day in class, they still appreciate their teacher.

``She's funny. She makes learning fun,'' said nine-year-old Bianca Jeffery.

``She's nice,'' said Tracy Spencer, also nine.

``She's just practically everything,'' said their classmate Michael Rudd.

Pulley, who not only teaches fourth-grade, hosts the show, teaches aerobics, and works occasionally as a model, may feel like she's being asked to be everything these days. But if the pace makes her crazy, the end result makes it worthwhile.

``I'm teaching and I'm not just affecting my 28 kids,'' she says. ``I`m affecting kids all over Hampton Roads.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

NHAT MEYER/The Virginian-Pilot

Fourth-grade teacher Jennifer Pulley helps Tim Bauer, 9, at Glenwood

Elementary in Virginia Beach. KEYWORDS: PROFILE

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