Latin & French Teacher/Ph.D. Candidate

Adina Stone is an animal-loving, family-oriented, Bible-believing native of Colbert County, residing in Tuscumbia and making Latin come to life at Sheffield High.  

She hails from a long line of teachers, which is at least four generations long -- probably longer.  She tells her students that they should prepare for anything and everything they can while they have the opportunity to get their educations, for no one ever knows what the future will hold.  Her career is the case in point. 

She tells us,  "Although I taught piano privately for years, I never thought I would be a school teacher-- much less a foreign language teacher!"  In the summers of her eighth and ninth grades, instead of playing (or maybe in addition to playing), she took two years of Latin instruction from former Sheffield teacher, Dorothy Means Barnett, because her parents thought she should do so.  "In those days, we didn’t question our parents, at least not in my family," she says.  

After high school graduation, she took semi-private creative writing lessons in the summer from Kitty Jones, who taught English composition at UNA.   According to Ms. Stone, investment of one's best effort in these types of endeavor brings rewards.   She says that these two ladies, Mrs. Barnett and Mrs. Jones,  worked her to death, but, ". . . each day I find that I am indebted to them more and more for the lessons that they taught me."   

            She changed majors in college about seven times--not because she disliked her first choices.  Like a child in a candy shop, she had a hard time deciding on one course of study.  Relying on her philosophy, she trained and prepared in several disciplines.  "I liked it all and just couldn’t settle for one thing.  I started out in interior design, and then I decided that I wanted to go to medical school.  To make a long story short, I was due to graduate and to go on to school at another institution to pursue studies in the medical field, when I suddenly changed my mind at the end.  I announced to my parents that I had decided to become a teacher.  That meant that not only did I have to pick up an education major, but that I also had to pick up another core major, since my biology and chemistry courses were not geared toward education."  Hence, the English degree.  

She student taught at Sheffield High School under the direction of Lyn Thrasher (English) and Betty Browder (biology).  Both were outstanding teachers, so she learned from the best!  After student teaching and substituting for a semester, she was hired to teach college preparatory English classes for the tenth and eleventh grades.  The next year, Mrs. Browder moved away, and she was hired to teach those courses, too. So, characteristically she went back to school adding biology and human physiology-anatomy classes to her repertoire.   

As a junior member of the SHS faculty, she sponsored student council, annual staff, ecology and science clubs, and lots of various other activities.  Then she was called to start a Latin program at Deshler, so, again it was back to school and learning for Adina.  She upped her French minor to a major and then started from scratch on Latin.   With the help of her teacher and friend, Peter Howard, She went on weekends and in the summers for three and a half years to Troy State University to earn a major in Latin.  

At Deshler, she taught a variety of subjects: annual staff, college prep English 9, French I, II, III, IV, Latin I, II, III, IV, and human anatomy and physiology. After a decade there, she returned to Sheffield High School to continue a Latin program, to start classes in French, and to help with some of the gifted and talented 7^th and 8^th graders.  she also tutors students who want extra help for ACT preparation and will commit to meet before school.  This year, her teaching responsibilities include Latin I-IV, French I, Advanced Placement English 12, and GT 7-8.   "No, I never thought I would be a teacher.  I was afraid of taking foreign language when I was in high school, so it is ironic that the things I love best are the ones that I used to fear most.   We just never know!" 

Currently, she is working on a Ph.D. in Classical Civilization and Roman Studies at the University of Florida.  "It was the encouragement of my mentor and dear friend Hans Mueller, Ph.D., and Classics Department Chair at Union College in New York, (who was once at the University of Florida) which convinced me that I should pursue this dream," she tells us.  She has studied there (Gainesville) in the summers and has traveled extensively, learning much all the while, in Spain, England, Germany, *France, *Greece, Turkey, and **Italy, including an archeological project, Pompeii Food and Drink Project, this past summer.  The fruits of these travels and experiences are being shared with her students.  Ms. Stone says, "I hope to bring these ancient cultures to life in relation to the languages that they used, the importance of their influence on our language, and the historical significance to our own society.  It is my hope that I may give students the desire to learn and make connections across the curriculum and also to increase their horizons culturally and linguistically in an ever-shrinking global setting. Most of all, I hope to give them something useful that they can take with them throughout life."

Recent Honors

Winter 2006

Disney Teacher Award Nominee (High School Humanities), for creative teaching techniques

Invited presenter to the Classical Association of the Mid-West and South, April 2006.  Subject:  Anatomical Votives and their Pathologies.

Selected teacher in the Virtual School Access program--the pilot program of distance learning provided by the state of Alabama.  Subject:  Latin I

Panel guest for the Blackburn Institute of the University of Alabama.  Subject:  education and economics of North Alabama.

Adina's appearance on Alabama Public Television's For The Record, Jan. 24, featuring VSA technology (Click Here)

            So, you see, the two most powerful things in this story of a dedicated teacher  are:  (1) Put your best effort into your learning process and never stop learning, and (2) Appreciate that you have mentors available to you and accept what they have to offer you graciously.  Then you'll be ready for anything that comes your way.  This teacher is obviously a mentor, par excellance--or should that be sine parilis?  

            Educational Background:

SUMMER2006

Adina in Africa Proconsularis (Tunisia).  

This workaholic SHS teacher had a full summer schedule with exams related to her graduate work at the University of Florida and meetings and workshops in her continuing education and professional societies--not to mention this archeological tour of Malta and Tunisia.  All of these experiences are going to be woven into her lesson plans for the French and Latin students this year.

The Huntsville Times:  Teaching Latin via ACCESS, an article about Adina Stone and Gov. Riley's visit to SHS.

Governor's Office press release:  Gov. Riley's trip to SHS

FALL2006