When Dr. Roxanne Cramer years ago visited her sister and the school she founded in St. John in the Caribbean, Cramer was impressed. Inspired by her sister's example, she entered a teacher education program at Harvard University in Massachusetts, which was near where she lived.
Cramer hasn't looked back since.
"I really believe kids are capable of so much more, and it's my job to stretch them," said the Fairfax City resident, whose first assignment was teaching grades 4 and 6 in Wayland, Mass., from 1966 to 1970.
After 37 years of teaching, 21 of them at Vienna's Louise Archer Elementary, Cramer, 69, will retire at the end of this school year. A teacher in the gifted and talented program, she will remain in the area, but hopes to garden more and travel during her retirement.
"She's just a learner. And she's someone who wants to share her love of learning with the kids," said Louise Archer principal Dwayne Young.
It was in 1975, five years after Cramer and her husband moved to the Washington, D.C. area, that Cramer first became interested in Fairfax County's G/T program. Cramer herself was a gifted child and remembered being four and playing cards with the traveling salesmen who stayed in the same hotel as her family. A teacher also living in the hotel noticed Cramer's precociousness and made her take an IQ test.
"I was usually out-of-sync with kids my own age," Cramer said. "And I always knew there was something different."
Cramer started teaching at Louise Archer in 1982, bringing the G/T center with her from Haycock Elementary, where she had taught previously since 1970.
As a G/T teacher, she particularly enjoys teaching fifth graders world history from early man to the Renaissance. To engage her students, she encourages simulations and makes connections between the history, culture and science of the period.
In one exercise inspired by a Steve Allen show, students research a major figure from the Renaissance, and, in character, discuss topics such as technology, art, literature, religion and politics with other students.
"To me, it's just exciting finding out about the past and hearing how it's relevant to the present," Cramer said. "I'm teaching the kind of class I wish I could've had in school."
Cramer also brings back crafts, posters and artifacts from her travels around the world to bring the social studies lessons to life.
"She's someone who walks the talk," Young said.
Parents and former students said they appreciated Cramer's rigorous coursework. Parent Betsy Andrews recalled how her two sons used a spelling book that examines the Greek and Latin roots of today's vocabulary. She also remembered how Cramer provided her students with a list of Web sites they could use to research their projects.
"She is a very hard-working and unique teacher, and she expects her students to really give their all," Andrews said.
Her son, Chris Moad, currently a seventh grader at Kilmer Middle School, agreed.
"She was strict, but fair," Chris said. "She was the best teacher I had, mainly because she just knew a lot about the world."
Although Cramer said she feels it's time to retire, she may substitute or volunteer. She'd like to go to Italy as well.
"We're going to miss her," Young said.