WES Speakers & Sessions
(Topics and Tracks to be added as more information become available)
Mary Pryor
Janet Spitler
Adam Andrews is the director of the Center for Literary Education and a home schooling father of six. Since 2003, he has traveled throughout the United States and Canada presenting an innovative method for teaching the crucial skills of literary analysis and interpretation. Adam’s dynamic presentations enable students to enjoy great literature as never before, while his fresh insights inspire parents and teachers with new vision for their task as educators.
Adam earned his B.A. from Hillsdale College in southern Michigan and his M.A. from the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is currently a candidate for the Ph.D. He is a Henry Salvatori Fellow of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and a founding board member of Westover Academy in Colville Washington. He and his wife Missy, a Hillsdale graduate and accomplished educator in her own right, currently teach all six of their children at home in Rice, Washington.
Danielle Olander, an Accomplished Instructor with Excellence in Writing, is the author of IEW’s new Rockets, Radar, and Robotics, Life Science Based Writing Lessons, and the lessons that accompany the Advanced Communication Series. A homeschooling mom of five amazing children, she also teaches writing and literature classes and edits and grades papers via e-mail.
After graduating from her parents’ home school in the pioneer days of home schooling, she attended Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, MI, and graduated summa cum laude with her BA in English education and history. During and after college, she worked as a librarian’s assistant in circulation, interlibrary loan, research, and cataloging, which only increased her lifelong love of reading, writing, and learning as she discovered so many new means of locating fascinating facts. In all her classes, she attempts to pass on this love of research and writing.
Jill Pike is a registered nurse with eighteen years of teaching experience as a home educator. As an Accomplished Instructor with Excellence in Writing, she moderates the IEW Families support group and writes lesson plans to accompany the Student Writing Intensive series. In addition to teaching high school level science and writing classes in her community, she works with her own early elementary students to help them learn to read, write and spell. Having graduated three of their children, Jill and her husband Greg continue to educate five girls at home in Huntington, Indiana.
Andrew Pudewa is the director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing and a homeschooling father of seven. Presenting throughout North America, he addresses issues relating to teaching, writing, thinking, spelling, and music with clarity, insight, practical experience, and humor. His seminars for parents, students and teachers have helped transform many a reluctant writer and have equipped educators with powerful tools to dramatically improve students’ skills.
Although he is a graduate of the Talent Education Institute in Japan and holds a Certificate of Child Brain Development from The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his best endorsement is from a young Alaskan boy who called him “the funny man with the wonderful words.” He and his beautiful, heroic wife Robin currently live in Tulsa, OK.
Janet Spitler is leading the School Division’s efforts to support classroom teachers and administrators with training, continuing education, mentoring, and classroom-specific materials. She studied communications with an emphasis on organizational change. She has sixteen years of experience teaching the structure and style methodology, has five-day-a-week classroom experience, and is accredited as an IEW Instructor as the highest level.