Published in the Mountainview
I found Martha Newell in her bakery, in the basement of her home in Shoreham. She let me interview her while the honey oat bread was baking. When I asked what the most important thing about her Middlebury College experience was, she grinned. First was friendships formed throughout her four years at Middlebury. Second was her department, Geography.
She spoke admiringly about the department, faculty and students alike. The faculty realized and valued, she said, that students had lives outside of the department. The students brought their lives into the academic realm, making her education a demanding mix of practical and theoretical. "They didn't coddle us at all," Newell says. "I did C work, and I got a C."
She admits that what she is doing now has little to do with her academic discipline, but everything to do with the life she had outside academia, which she was able to integrate into her studies.
During summers in high school, and in the autumn before her February arrival at Middlebury, Newell worked as a cook at the Outward Bound School near her home in Bethel, Maine. There, preparation of wholesome food was coupled with individual responsibility.
She worked two college summers on the Camden, Maine schooner Mary Day. She not only learned to sail, but also cooked three meals a day for 35 people, over wood. "It was intense," Newell says. "I was the cook. I had only one person to help me." She had free rein over the entire menu and a captive audience for experimentation and feedback. "[The crew] knew what I'd made before, and told me what they thought." She did not have control over the boat, however, and tells a dizzying story of trying to cook while the boat was thrashing wildly in rough water. "I said, 'I'm trying to cook down here and you're up there dipping the siderails!'"
Obviously unsunk, Newell spent a semester at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's SEA Semester program. During that time, Newell learned that two friends (both Middlebury '93) were selling their bakery. The idea of owning a wholesale local bakery was exciting, but she was unwilling to undertake such a task alone. She also "couldn't see the light at the end of the college tunnel" and so remained uncommitted.
In November 1994, Newell spoke with her friend Martha Love and brought up the bakery. Love said, half-seriously, "I'd do that." In August 1995, the pair bought the bakery. The newly renamed Two Marthas' Breads baked for the 1995 holiday season, and began "in earnest" the day after Newell graduated, in February 1996.
She opens the oven, checks the loaves, and continues. Newell describes the opportunity to buy the bakery as "the right opportunity with the right person at the right time; I couldn't pass it up." She had not previously thought of staying in the area after graduation, and still misses the ocean and sailing. She is, however, learning business skills and enjoys the challenge of finding her bearings with her business partner, Love.
She turns to begin cutting and weighing raisin walnut dough, and shapes it into loaves as she speaks. The bakery is an active community participant, providing breads to local businesses and the Middlebury Farmer's Market. Newell loves providing fresh, good bread to the community and contextualizes the bakery's role in a return to an older style of shopping, where shoppers go to different purveyors for different foods, instead of today's "Grand Union style" supermarket.
Newell's experience with the community as a student at Middlebury was "fairly limited," but through her business, especially the summer-only Farmer's Market, she interacts with a large cross-section of the community.
Without looking at a clock, she knows the bread in the oven is done, and removes it as I ask her about softball. Newell plays in the Middlebury summer co-ed league. She played softball in college, and enjoyed the opportunity to play on a team during the summer. On her team were league founder David Weedman, local media personality Jeff Kaufman, and a former head writer for the "Guiding Light" soap opera, among others from across the county.
She is connected fairly closely to the College: the Crest Room and the Gamut Room are clients, and she uses the library and goes to movies shown on campus.
Newell envisions a number of things in her future. She may bake for a while. "I do love this ... it's such a great experience." She does miss the ocean, though, and may work on boats. She stresses that she is not leaving now, and has visions of having "a cool coffee shop" with her baked goods on the counter, but acknowledges that such a business "is a commitment of a different sort."
Newell has achieved a fascinating level of understanding with bread, and is "constantly surprised by the process." She says, "you can control the bread and make it do things you want, but there is a point at which you have to abandon control and let the bread do its thing. The most important elements of the process are time and careful observation." As she puts the loaves onto a baking sheet and turns to the oven, she laughs, "Nothing is ever routine about my life."
Wednesday, November 27, 1996
Wednesday, November 20, 1996
Alumni profile: From hockey to education: Bell gives it all
Published in the Mountainview
Elizabeth Bell arrived in Middlebury in February 1989, and has neither stopped learning nor teaching since. A psychology major with a concentration in elementary education, she played lacrosse and ice hockey in Middlebury jerseys. She says the most important things about her experience at Middlebury were her friendships and connections to the town community.
Active in programs for children since arriving, she says she felt much more like a resident of the town of Middlebury than a student at the College. She speaks fondly of her sophomore and junior years, when she "could walk through town and know - at least by face - nearly everyone."
She became more involved in the Mountain Club in autumn 1992, and spread her contagious good cheer there as well.
Upon her graduation in February 1993, she journeyed west but soon returned, arriving in Middlebury that May to spend the summer working at the Mary Johnson Children's Center.
She spent autumn in her Teacher Education professional semester teaching at the Cornwall Elementary School. At the end of 1993 she moved to Washington, D.C. to teach kindergarten. The following summer she taught English as a Second Language to international students at the Fay School, a boarding school outside Boston.
In autumn 1994, Bell began a master's program at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. It was a one-year program which also certified her to teach at the elementary level. As part of her graduate program, she taught at a Northampton school.
Last autumn she began her first job with her own classroom, in Clarendon, Vt. This year she is teaching first grade at the Barstow School in Chittenden, and lives in Cornwall.
She has a "beautiful" forty minute community which provides the opportunity to rehearse her day's plans before arriving at school. Though she works long hours (leaving home at 6 am and returning sometimes after 7 pm), the drive also permits her to clear her mind before returning home to her housemate, friends, and her dog Fern.
Bell loves Vermont, though admitting that if she had not gone to Middlebury she would probably not be here now. She returned to Vermont after graduating from Smith because her own classroom was a positive step along her career path. She is now thinking of moving west, to Colorado or California, to be near family, with whom she is very close. She talks animatedly about seeing her brother and sister more often. At the same time, however, Bell expresses concern about the state of education, particularly in California. A recent California state mandate would force Bell to give up part of her teaching philosophy to be allowed to teach there. All is not lost, as she notes: another recent California initiative provides state funding to schools which attempt to lower their student-teacher ratios.
Bell is also concerned with the state of education closer to her present home. Last year, when Middlebury College's Teacher Education program was embroiled in controversy, Bell returned to campus to speak with the review committee. She is enthusiastic about the opportunities Middlebury's Teacher Education program has available. She appreciates that the Center for the Arts and Starr Library are specific College facilities which are open to both local teachers and alumni. "I'm glad we're welcome here," she says. She adds that because the College draws an intellectual community, the schools in the area are excellent; student teachers have access to experienced, capable teachers who love what they do. Bell cites her own experience as an example. During her student teaching at Cornwall, she was able to collaborate with other teachers, and even team-teach with other student teachers in the school. She finds Vermont's educational climate less inclined to have "knee-jerk" political reactions to educational programs, and notes Vermont's traditional position as a leader in educational innovation.
Bell's latest contribution to the community is an attempt to organize a regular pond hockey game, demonstrating her continuing desire to have more fun, learn, and teach. Of her demanding profession, she says, "It's all worth it when you see their smiling faces and talk to them and learn from them."
Elizabeth Bell arrived in Middlebury in February 1989, and has neither stopped learning nor teaching since. A psychology major with a concentration in elementary education, she played lacrosse and ice hockey in Middlebury jerseys. She says the most important things about her experience at Middlebury were her friendships and connections to the town community.
Active in programs for children since arriving, she says she felt much more like a resident of the town of Middlebury than a student at the College. She speaks fondly of her sophomore and junior years, when she "could walk through town and know - at least by face - nearly everyone."
She became more involved in the Mountain Club in autumn 1992, and spread her contagious good cheer there as well.
Upon her graduation in February 1993, she journeyed west but soon returned, arriving in Middlebury that May to spend the summer working at the Mary Johnson Children's Center.
She spent autumn in her Teacher Education professional semester teaching at the Cornwall Elementary School. At the end of 1993 she moved to Washington, D.C. to teach kindergarten. The following summer she taught English as a Second Language to international students at the Fay School, a boarding school outside Boston.
In autumn 1994, Bell began a master's program at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. It was a one-year program which also certified her to teach at the elementary level. As part of her graduate program, she taught at a Northampton school.
Last autumn she began her first job with her own classroom, in Clarendon, Vt. This year she is teaching first grade at the Barstow School in Chittenden, and lives in Cornwall.
She has a "beautiful" forty minute community which provides the opportunity to rehearse her day's plans before arriving at school. Though she works long hours (leaving home at 6 am and returning sometimes after 7 pm), the drive also permits her to clear her mind before returning home to her housemate, friends, and her dog Fern.
Bell loves Vermont, though admitting that if she had not gone to Middlebury she would probably not be here now. She returned to Vermont after graduating from Smith because her own classroom was a positive step along her career path. She is now thinking of moving west, to Colorado or California, to be near family, with whom she is very close. She talks animatedly about seeing her brother and sister more often. At the same time, however, Bell expresses concern about the state of education, particularly in California. A recent California state mandate would force Bell to give up part of her teaching philosophy to be allowed to teach there. All is not lost, as she notes: another recent California initiative provides state funding to schools which attempt to lower their student-teacher ratios.
Bell is also concerned with the state of education closer to her present home. Last year, when Middlebury College's Teacher Education program was embroiled in controversy, Bell returned to campus to speak with the review committee. She is enthusiastic about the opportunities Middlebury's Teacher Education program has available. She appreciates that the Center for the Arts and Starr Library are specific College facilities which are open to both local teachers and alumni. "I'm glad we're welcome here," she says. She adds that because the College draws an intellectual community, the schools in the area are excellent; student teachers have access to experienced, capable teachers who love what they do. Bell cites her own experience as an example. During her student teaching at Cornwall, she was able to collaborate with other teachers, and even team-teach with other student teachers in the school. She finds Vermont's educational climate less inclined to have "knee-jerk" political reactions to educational programs, and notes Vermont's traditional position as a leader in educational innovation.
Bell's latest contribution to the community is an attempt to organize a regular pond hockey game, demonstrating her continuing desire to have more fun, learn, and teach. Of her demanding profession, she says, "It's all worth it when you see their smiling faces and talk to them and learn from them."
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