Jessie Wise

Professional Experience

Jessie Wise is a home education consultant, speaker, and writer. She is also the co-author of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home (with co-author Susan Wise Bauer), published by W.W. Norton in July, 1999. Until her consulting load grew too heavy, she tutored privately in English and mathematics. Jessie also served as the principal of a private cooperative school for two years, a position which included both administrative duties and the teaching of elementary classes on all subjects. She taught three children at home from elementary school through high school; all three completed college degrees, and two went on to complete graduate degrees as well. Before educating her own children, whe taught preschool at a private school in New Orleans. Over the years she also taught second, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade classes at public schools in three states; Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana. For a short period, she also taught the children of international hospital workers in Haiti. She is currently at work on my own home school book – the story of my journey into home education.

Education

Jessie graduated magna cum laude from Carson-Newman College in Tennessee in 1959; was a member of the Mortar Board Honor Society and of Pi Kappa, the national honor debate fraternity. Since then, she has taken courses for state teacher certification at Tulane University in New Orleans, the College of William & Mary in Virginia, and the University of Virginia. She has completed teacher workshops on learning disabilities, and has worked with dyslexic students. She has also been trained in school administration (courses taken in Pensacola, Florida). Recently, she has completed a series of seminars in parenting skills which she uses as a resource when advising home-schooling parents and students.

Personal

Jessie Wise grew up in isolated rural Virginia, raised by elderly relatives who were subsistence farmers.  They had no indoor bathroom, and travelled to town only twice a year – for Christmas presents and spring shoes. She was the valedictorian of her 1955 high school class, and the only girl to go on to college. She met her husband Jay in college, and taught school for six years while he went through his medical training. After he finished medical school, Jay went into the Navy. Over the next few years they lived in New Orleans, Tennessee, Maine, Virginia, Boston, and Puerto Rico. They also spent a short time at the Albert Schweitzer Memorial Hospital in Haiti, and decided to sponsor the education of two Haitian boys (both are now American citizens and successful professionals). In Boston they adopted their youngest daughter, a biracial child. When Jay got out of the service, they moved back to the Virginia farm where Jessie grew up. Jay began a rural general practice and they started homesteading – raising livestock, killing their own pigs, and cultivating an enormous garden, while Jessie taught their three children at home. Over the years they’ve given a temporary home to numerous people – including a South American doctor who wanted to learn English, and ex-CIA officer who needed a place for his entire family, ex-flower children, and students of all kinds. Now that her children are grown, she serves as an elder in her local church, assists her husband in his second career (as an artist!), and helps educate her grandchildren.