BESS LONG
Grade 5

Beginning my third year in fifth grade at ICS, I look forward to transitioning another class from Elementary School to Middle School. I love working with this age group and enjoy the curriculum, especially Economics, Colonial History of Africa and our health unit on growing up. I also love belonging to the professional community at ICS where experienced and dedicated teachers and administrators work together as a team with parents. My husband's job with the US Agency for International Development brought us to live in Addis.   Our two daughters attend ICS (7th and 9th grades).   Our son lives in Austin, Texas with his grandmother and attends Middle School there.

I was born in New Orleans and raised there and in another city in southern Louisiana.   My Texan parents kept our roots to Texas strong, and I eventually settled there. The American South and Southwest are fascinating parts of the US - the food, the people and the music and culture are unique.

After earning my undergraduate degree from UT in Elementary Curriculum and Instruction, I taught bilingual (Spanish-English) kindergarten for 6 years in Austin, Texas.    In the evenings I earned my Masters degree in Foreign Language Instruction. I have taught students from kindergarten to university level - both in regular classrooms and in English as a Second (Third or Fourth!) Language classrooms. I have had the opportunity to teach in Austin, Texas; Arlington, Virginia; and at international schools in Bolivia. I also recently spent two years in Ghana helping the Ministry of Education develop a standardized testing program for their primary school.

I look forward to continuing the excellent education your children began here at ICS and elsewhere.   My goal for myself this year at a teacher is to facilitate my students' learning - academic, social and emotional - as they grow into greater maturity and move onto Middle School.