The Legacy of Dorothy Gerald

Editor's Note: This story was written as part of a journalism class assignment for the 2018-2019 school year. It was never published. We proudly publish it now in honor of Mrs. Gerald, who will be greatly missed and always remembered at the WF Castle. (Thank you to Excalibur yearbook for the photo).

High school is one of the best parts of many people's lives. You live the life that will never happen again - your freshman year when you think you are lost and everything is hard all the way to your senior year when school becomes almost your second home.

But what comes after? You are not a kid anymore whose parents protects him or her from everything in the world. After school comes adulthood, which students need to handle on their own. And probably it is going to be very hard. So how do young adults cope with and handle the stresses of the world?

Veteran teacher Dorothy Gerald is here to help answer these questions with her Family Life class.

Family Life is a science where our parents and other adult are role models. Everything we know about family life and adulthood is learned mostly from our parents and sometimes from the movies. But ask yourself - do you really know all of that? Are you truly ready to “adult”?

Luckily, we have such classes as Family Life and Family/Consumer science. FCS teaches students to deal with major societal issues such as work-and-family, health care, child and elder care, family and community violence and crime, global economics and politics, and technology use.

Gerald says it is really important to teach teenagers to build a strong foundation of skills and knowledge which is needed for success in life.

“The best part of being a teacher for high school students is trying to get them ready for adulthood and realize the things that they have that are positive and things that are negative and trying to help them to make wise decisions,” said Gerald.

Who is more able to reach students’ minds and teach them family life basics than the teacher who has been working with kids for so long, over 40 years? Gerald’s experience and compassion allows her to understand her students and talk with them about their problems..

“I have encountered problems for students from all kinds of sources,” Gerald said. “Some of them are not just book work and helping students to learn to prepare for tests, but also everything from students having abusive parents to friends being in trouble,” said Gerald.

Gerald has two children and four grandkids. Her grandson is playing for the Arkansas Razorbacks and she is a big fan of this college team, as is expected.

Gerald had some sage advice for students finding their way in this world.

“The advice that I would give to the students would be to realize that you have to take the time to talk to and get all the advice and help that you can from your parents, grandparents and other adults who have already lived…” she said.

Dorothy Gerald is certainly a testament to that advice, and WF students are forever grateful for her support.