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Alumni Profiles

Dorrit in the Bixby Years

Dorrit today with husband Craig

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

Dorrit's family chose Bixby in part because of recommendations from family friends whose son attended the school.

"I have many memories of my days of Bixby. I recall a day when the Lower Yard was closed due to bad weather and my best friend, Mara Vanderslice, and I were playing at the Lego table under the loft. We must have had too much energy to be stuck inside because we started getting silly-and I guess little loud. Bart came over and asked us to settle down. I don't remember what set off the next wave of giggles, but the decibel level rose and I'm sure we could be heard all over the downstairs. Bart came back and sent us to sit on the orange rug-which in those days is where you went when you were in trouble. Bart sat down to talk to us and commanded us not to smile-a tall order when we were already in that frame of mind! I was certain he wasn't looking when I made a face at Mara, but of course, he caught it. Since we were already sitting on the orange rug, Bart's only option was to "discipline" us further by telling us to fetch our jackets and play outdoors! Mara and I couldn't believe our luck. Not only did we have the whole Lower Yard to ourselves, we didn't even have to follow the usual poor-weather rule of not touching the ground. It turned out to be a very good day -in spite of all the "punishment!"

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.

The summer after I finished 6th grade, my family moved to Seattle. I spent one year in a fairly non-traditional middle school, before moving on to a very small, but quite traditional high school. After 6 years at Bixby, and another year of non-traditional schooling, classrooms with desks facing the blackboard and following text books were quite a shock. Thanks to my training at Bixby, I was able to learn a little something in high school despite the mindless approach to teaching, and the assumption that rote learning was of value. After escaping high school I had four very happy years at Haverford College where the interest in technology which Bixby instilled re-emerged and developed into an independent major in computer science. (By the way, thanks again to Bixby for giving me the ability to articulate what I want to do and to find a way to do it.) My husband and I met my freshman year at Haverford and we married a month after I graduated. Craig is rather absent-minded, and I find myself saying to him something I remember Bart saying to me, "Forgetting is the same as not wanting to." I'm sure Craig believes me about as much as I believed Bart 20 years ago. He doesn't yet have the advantage of hindsight to see how right Bart was. It is true that I don't forget the things I really want to do.

After graduating from Haverford, I began a graduate program in computer science at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I completed my master's there in 1999. Although I swore I was done with school, I find myself back as a part-time student working on my Ph.D. I'm doing research in content management (especially focusing on the management of government records).

These days my husband and I are living happily in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California with three cats and a snake. I am a Program Manager in the IT division of Seagate Technology. At the moment I'm leading an effort to create a solution to the problem of managing information. I'm also active in the definition and development of the processes governing business practices within the IT organization. And, as I mentioned, I am working on that PhD. Outside of work, school, family and friends, my main passion is ballroom dancing. I've been dancing for seven years. I compete occasionally when time permits, but mostly I just love to be out on the floor. I also continue to ski as often as I can during the winter.

Although my husband and I have no plans to have children, I know that if we ever changed our minds, starting a family would have to coincide with a return to Boulder. I cannot conceive of sending my children to any school other than Bixby. The school had such a profound, positive impact on my life, I would not want to give my own children anything less. I hope that teachers who leave Bixby take the lessons they learn and pass them along to other schools where they may teach. Every school could benefit from Pat and Bart's approach to teaching.

Is there someone you think we should profile on this page? Please send your suggestion with contact numbers to: cpoiri@aol.com.