JACQUELINE FRISCHKNECHT

I grew up in Virginia, but have spent my adult life in Colorado. I have a B.S. in education, a M.S. in Library Science and a Ph.D. in Communication. I was an elementary school librarian for a number of years before teaching undergraduate communication courses at the college and university levels. I then moved to teaching at the graduate level (University College, University of Denver) and ultimately became Dean of Academic Affairs there. After leaving the university, I created an adult graduate college for television.

Throughout these career changes I remained interested in how people learn. It began because although my middle daughter was clearly very bright, she was not doing well in first grade. She complained of being ‘bored’ with school. How can she be bored? I wondered. It’s not like her teacher is asking her to repeat things she’s already learned! Digging deeper, I discovered several things:

1. People learn in different ways.
2. The school didn’t even pretend to be attuned to learning styles.
3. My daughter was, indeed, bored—nothing at school related to her or her way of learning!

With only minor adjustments in teaching style, my “slow learner” whipped through all the first- and second-grade reading books in one weekend! This experience resulted in yet another career change—to author.

Some years ago I was finishing writing a book with a colleague (Glenn Capelli, True Learning Center, Perth, Australia) about adult learning (Maximizing Your Learning Potential Kendall Hunt Publishing Co. 1995). Since my eldest daughter, EllaMarie Schroeder, was a recently ‘retired’ middle school English teacher, I decided to ask her opinion of the manuscript. Her response was, “Oh dear, Mom, this really needs help!” With that comment, a writing partnership was established and we’ve been working together ever since.

All of the books we write are based on my research about how people learn. Our agreement is that I will be major author on ‘academic’ books and she
will be major author on our children’s fantasy adventure books. This has worked out very well. We discuss everything together, then write according to our agreement, with the second author editing what the major author has written.

ELLAMARIE SCHROEDER

I grew up in Colorado and attended college in Pennsylvania. I lived and taught in California for seventeen years, the vast majority of them at the middle school level, teaching English and History. I earned a Master’s Degree in Special Education (Gifted) at California State University, Los Angeles.

Teaching and writing have been the two passions in my life. I began seriously writing when I was assigned to teach California History at the seventh-grade level—with no textbook. A friend and I collaborated and produced California Connections. Having it published was so exciting, I could hardly wait to start the next project.

When we moved to Michigan I decided I wanted more time with my twin sons. (English and History teachers can never leave school at school—there are always stacks of student writing to read and critique!) And so I reversed the order of my life, making writing primary and teaching secondary. Currently I spend several days a week writing and teach part-time at the Chippewa Nature Center.

I live in Midland, Michigan with my husband and dog. I love music and play, with varying degrees of proficiency, handbells, flute, euphonium, and saxophone. Much of my free time is spent reading, knitting, and whenever possible, traveling—preferably with some hiking, snowshoeing, snorkeling, or canoeing thrown in, and whenever college vacations allow, including my now-grown sons.