Alumni Profiles

Dorrit Gordon enrolled at Bixby in 1st grade (1982) and continued until graduation from 6th grade in 1988.

It's impossible to count all the valuable lessons I learned at Bixby. One of the things I value most is how Pat and Bart believe that kids, no matter how young, are capable of learning and taking responsibility for themselves. Since they believe kids can be responsible, they allow them to take responsibility. And because my teachers and my family expected me to be responsible for myself, I learned to be responsible. This lesson has served me well throughout my life. In college I routinely watched my friends pull all-nighters. While I often spent just as many hours on an assignment, I never once worked later than midnight. Even if I procrastinated, I knew when it was time to get to work.

I love that Pat & Bart taught me how to learn (not just how to memorize). They taught me that learning is a process and it should be fun. I spent one semester in a fourth-grade class in a public school in southern CA. On the first day of school we went through the useless and embarrassing drill of a "times-table bee." The teacher would select a student, verbally give a simple multiplication problem, and allow the student a very brief amount of time to return the answer. I failed miserably. It wasn't that I didn't know how to multiply-I could-in fact, I could do far more complex multiplication than probably anyone else in the class. It was that I hadn't learned the times tables by rote. Instead I had learned to really understand the meaning and process of multiplication. Even at 8 or 9 years old, I recognized that Bixby taught me how to learn and how to love learning, not just how to recite information. I was thrilled to be back at Bixby in January where I was once again allowed to learn, not just perform boring busy work.

Here's some feedback from former Bixby students. If you’re a Bixby alumni, we'd love to hear about your experiences too. Please visit our alumni survey to share your memories and give us an update on your life today.