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12.03.04 Dana Blackhurst "Connecting" with kids energizes Erskine graduate Dana Blackhurst, a 1983 graduate of Erskine College and headmaster of Camperdown Academy in Greenville since 1991, is an award-winning teacher and expert on dyslexia who is often in the news. He was featured on the cover of the "City People" section of the Sept. 22 edition of The Greenville News. The story, by Abe Hardesty, traced Blackhurst's journey from dyslexic dysfunction in school — culminating in a failure to finish high school — through graduation from Erskine College and acclaim as an educator. TAKING A CHANCE Blackhurst credits Erskine Professor Emerita Katherine Chandler, then an education professor at Erskine, with faith that looked beyond his failures. "Mrs. Chandler took a chance on me," he told Hardesty. He also remembers the inspiration he gained from Roddy Gray in the admissions office, Bill Lesesne, who was serving as dean at the time, and several faculty members, including Dr. Ben Farley, Dr. Cal Koonts, Dr. Jan Haldeman and Zelda Oates, all professors emeriti, and longtime physics professor Dr. Bill Junkin. Richard Haldeman of Due West, who was then public relations director at Erskine, remembers Blackhurst and said the program for students with learning disabilities at that time was "controversial." "Some people thought it would destroy Erskine's academic standards," he said. But for Blackhurst, Erskine offered an opportunity that led eventually to a career he loves and the rewards of working with students whose challenges are close to his own experience. "The whole school was inspiring," he said. "The professors had time for you." THE RIGHT TIRES Maybe it's the memory of those teachers at Erskine that makes Blackhurst willing to bet on his students at Camperdown Academy. "They are Ferraris," he says. "You just have to give them the right tires." Giving his students "the right tires" is what Blackhurst strives to do, in an unconventional style that has earned him teaching awards and kept him in demand as word of his work in South Carolina spreads. His wife, Jan Jones Blackhurst, knows about her husband's passion for opening doors for students. "He is totally committed — obsessed — with changing children's lives, one child at a time," she said. He believes there is an individual prescription for each child, she said, as she learned when the two first met. "I was going to Washington on business, and Dana was on his way to Munich," she recalls. "It was after the death of the father of one of his students and the family had asked him to come and see the child over there." She and Blackhurst struck up a conversation and she told him about some learning problems her son was having. "He was really interested, and he set up testing for my son," she said. "He follows up." Jan and Dana Blackhurst divide their time between Greenville and Las Vegas, Nev., where she works as an executive with Harrah's, and Dana is an active board member of the Andre Agassi Preparatory School and the Clark County Public Education Foundation. But no matter where they are, "The phone never stops," she said. "Children's problems don't stop," she said. "Dana's is not a job that you can leave and come home and put your feet up and turn on the television." "Juggling is hard because I am a workaholic and she is a workaholic," Blackhurst admits. "She does a really good job of putting up with me." STRUGGLES AND REWARDS Blackhurst said the most fulfilling aspect of his job is "when you see kids come back and they are doing well." But he doesn't stop there. For him, there is hope in what others might consider failure. "Even when kids' lives haven't turned out the way you hoped, but they come back to Camperdown, that says something," he said. "Sometimes the ones you butted heads with still come back." He has no doubts about his calling. "I don't call it teaching, I call it connecting," he said. "People who go into education don't go into it for the money," he insists. "At the end of the day, you may have changed a life or changed a future generation — you have awesome power as a teacher." His advice to future teachers studying at Erskine? "Get into a place where you can learn your craft," he said. "Go where teaching comes first, not administration, and don't be afraid to fail." Blackhurst said he based much of what he has built at Camperdown Academy on his Erskine experience. "I'm very proud of our faculty," he said. "Our school is considered number one or two in the whole country, and the core of our school, what it's really based on, is how I was treated at Erskine." Although he went from being a teacher at Camperdown to appointment as headmaster in a short period of time, Blackhurst says he is still a full-time teacher, and still loves it. And like every teacher, he has frustrating days. "The most tiring thing about my job is when we don't succeed when we've done everything possible," he said. But Blackhurst doesn't let setbacks stop him now any more than he did at Erskine, where every success was hard-won. Because of his learning disability, he jokes, "I went in as ('Beverly Hillbillies' character) Jethro Bodine — I had no background." VISION Despite trouble with several of his college classes, Blackhurst kept trying, and he remembers Erskine as "a magical place." It may be that combination of persistence and wonder that keeps him moving as a teacher. He knows that his students see the world differently from the way most people see it, and he is not afraid to try something new with them. "If you're just vanilla, that's all you're going to get out of your kids, vanilla," he says. Blackhurst says he has trouble with some new things, however. He is "not a big fan" of technology. The "connecting" he does as teacher and headmaster works better face to face. When someone sends him an e-mail, he says, "I always answer back, 'See me.'" His wife describes Blackhurst's dedication to students as a way of seeing the future for each one of them. "He's looking at what's happening a week from now, a year from now," she said. "He sees the child where they should be five years from now and he's planning for that vision. "That's a different way of seeing the world." Dana Blackhurst has received recognition for his work from the Orton Dyslexia Society, P. Buckley Moss Children's Charities, the State of South Carolina, and the South Carolina Independent School Association. |
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