Karen Ellis Biography
There really is a face behind the machine . . . The RESUMÈ
Karen Ellis and Mollie
U.S.V.I. West Indian Proverb Says:
LITTLE AX CUT DOWN BIG TREE
A woman may be small,
but will accomplish big things.
Netroots 1991
I’ve been on the Net before the Web began!
The Face Behind the Machine.
This is What I do. LOVE YOUR JOB!
Someone dares to cross a boundary. Someone dares to dream, achieving the impossible. And she dared to work in every way that she could to make her seemingly-insane dream a reality. Because of her willingness to risk ridicule for what to others may have seemed a bizarre obsession, she expanded our sense of human possibilities. And by daring to trumpet her achievements in a book, a website, a reading curricula she added even more to the horizon of humanity. Achieving the impossible is part of the process of culture making. Promoting that achievement and its meaning is equally vital. Self-promotion can sometimes be one of your most selfless acts. The more humans you can reach, the more humans you can empower. The more you can embed your message in the cultural fabric, the more likely you are to make a contribution that outlasts your brief appearance on this earth and gives its bounty to generations yet to come.
Karen Ellis
Education Publisher
Print + Online Media
In 1976-79 during my lunch hour when teaching at Ricardo Richards elementary school on St. Croix, U.S.V.I. I collected children's indigenous playground poetry then copyrighted the live sound field recording compilation in 1979 when John Hickerson was the director of the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress. I also know Dr. Alan Jabbour who helped me to integrate Folk Music, Folklore and Traditional Culture Instruction Into K-12 Education.
At the time, my home was a six-acre sugarcane plantation called "Diamond and Ruby" where I lived with two cats Friday and Guavaberry. All the Great Houses had wonderful names like that and have survived countless hurricanes.
I've lived through 2 hurricanes, named Frederick and David which devastated St.Croix in 1979. I then relocated stateside to San Diego, CA with my 2 cats. Imagine, the first thing that happened in my new home in San Diego was Mount St. Helen's blew up. Take my advice, this is what you need to know to get prepared and live through disasters.
I spent 5 years in San Diego teaching children and adults while doing some sailing, traveling, and horseback riding. My cat Friday passed away but Guavaberry, a Chocolate Siamese whose ancestors came from the pirate ships of the Caribbean, moved back east with me around 1980. At this point my 2 dogs Maggie and Mollie came into the picture. Sadly all my pets are gone now, it's the first time in 25 years I don't hear 4 paws around me.
In 1985-86 Apple IIc starter system cost $1098.00 It took me ten years to launch Guavaberry Books, and in 1990 using Pagemaker and a Mac 68000 I self published the compilation titled Domino.
Imagine, in 1991 I was using a modem, bulletin boards and Lynks @ 300 bps speeding my way up to 2400 bps. then 9600 baud followed by 56K and now cable. All that was before the www sites came along, remember, the World-Wide Web began in March 1989 and I was there and got to watch when the watch the first websites came online. Nov. 3 1992 On the day that Bill Clinton is first elected U.S. president, there are 50 pages on the World Wide Web.
My work just seamlessly moved from publishing offline to publishing and teaching online, because this was an organic, authentic process, a path that I followed in my life. Thats the short story of how I got here.
Today I wear many Hats. I'm known as a webmistress, site architect, web developer, curriculum content developer, Blogger, Consultant, Online Publicist, and overall RingLeader for the Educational CyberPlayGround. Imagine helping over 2 million people a year! and that explains why I'm on the net and not in a classroom.
Music & Orff Schulwerk - A Personal History
Most Memorable Teachers who gave me the first "building blocks of how the world works and the skills to negotiate for the rest of my life."
I am the first person in the United States that graduated Level 3 Orff Certification that had been taught Orff Schulwerk as a child.
In 1965 and 1966 as a 10 year old at Oak Lane Day School my first Orff teacher was Mrs. Fannabell Kremins, who had just received her training directly by Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman in the class of 1962 at the Royal Conservatory of Music, University of Toronto. See the 1963 Student Class Picture of Kremins, Keetman and Orff.
In 1963 I started to study the ukele along with my friend Joel Bernstein. During high school my friend Joel studied guitar with Tossi Aaron: Orff Teacher, Founder of Orff Schulwerk PAOSA chapter, Author, Publisher, and Folk singer who told me about the Orff Schulwerk Teachers certification program in 1970. It was in her class at Abington Friends where she reintroduced me to Orff Schulwerk and I first met John Broomall.
1970 I attended the University of Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music and was taught dance by Ms. Traude Schrattenecker one of the original creators of the Schulwerk, who developed the movement approach with Orff and Keetman at the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria. Ms. Schrattenecker lived through the bombing of Dresden during World War II studied and danced with Mary Wigman the Founder of Modern Dance. Most people have heard of Martha Graham, who popularized "modern dance" and brought the movement to the United States. Sadly, Traude has now passed away.
My second certification level was with Doreen Hall who studied with Orff and brought the method to Canada and is responsible for implementing this technique throughout the Canadian School System.
My third level teachers class was with Jos Wuytack at Memphis State University - recorder with Mimi Samuelson through all 3 levels.
I started my first 2 years of teacher training at the Royal Conservatory of Music, University of Toronto in 1970 and 1971 when I was 17 and 18 years old, then did my last year at Memphis State in 1973.
I used the Orff Schulwerk technique as a Music Therapist at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, in 1976. At that time I worked with children 3 - 18 year olds and their families. The Child Guidance Clinic was nationally renowned for a technique known as "Family Therapy". It was Dr. Salvador Minuchin who invented this technique and brought it to the clinic. My Uncle Dr. Leon Eisenberg influenced my work and interest in culture. Collecting music seemed to run in the family. Honoring the unknown culture maker must run in my family. My cousin David Goldenberg collected the earliest jazz ever recorded. I helped uncover the origin of the word JAZZ and 30 years ago collected children's clap pattern songs, chants and games from the American Virgin Islands.
Reading and Culture Making
DOMINO In the same tradition of honoring The Funk Brothers previously "unknown culture makers" I used the Orff Schulwerk approach to recover the indigenous playground poetry from the children, who are also "unknown culture makers" to develop a Folksong Reading Module, a thematic reading curriculum for children who only spoke dialect and Spanish on the Island of St. Croix, U.S., Virgin Islands in 1976 to 1979. I developed this approach by collecting all the children's indigenous playground poetry published by Guavaberry Books in Domino and you can do this for yourself and your children.
Visit the National Children's Folksong Repository
We care about teaching children to read. We care about those who come to school speaking other than standard english. We care about Language Liberation, access and protecting our right to know. We have the right to know. We celebrate unknown culture makers. Unshackled from the talking head world where earnings per share mean more than finding the truth, I will tell you that there won't be any corporate considerations, no earnings per share issues, no worries about advertisers and what they might think. Right is its own defense.
MISSION STATEMENT - Improving literacy through arts education and advocacy by providing collaborative and interdisciplinary resources for understanding world culture.
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Allan Slutsky and the Funk Brothers |
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I was proud to be part of the production of the movie "Standing In The Shadows of Motown" with my friends Allan Slutsky and the Funk Brothers After years of playing music as the studio band for Motown Records in virtual anonymity, The Funk Brothers received their long overdue acknowledgement as an integral part of rock and roll history.
We Won 2 Grammys Feb. 23, 2003 For
Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance: " What's Going On" - Chaka Khan & The Funk Brothers, Best Compilation Soundtrack Albaum: Standing In the Shadows of Motown - Various Artists
2002 Best Non-Fiction Film National Society of Film Critics Awards ,
2002 Best Non-Fiction Film New York Film Critics Circle Awards ,
2002 Best Documentary: Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics' Choice Award Nominee
Allan Slutsky and Carla Benson both helped me out with the National Children's Folksong Repository where you contribute folksongs and chants to the online archive and document more unknown culture makers.
Crossroads Irish-American Festival 2006 March 1 - 11, 2006, San Francisco
The Best Way
to Sum Me Up:
A researcher filmed children romping in a school playground at lunch hour each seemed to be "doing his own thing." When they played it and rolled the film, the two fit perfectly-- for all of the film's four and a half minutes. But there was no music playing in that playground, says the author, "Without knowing it, they were all moving to a beat they generated themselves." music and rhythm are part of what draw us into the larger body of the superorganism.
Careful study showed that the group was moving in synchrony to a silent rhythm
But careful analysis revealed that the group was moving to a unified rhythm. One Little Girl, far more active than the rest, covered the entire schoolyard in her play. Hall and his student realized that without knowing it, she was "the director" and "the orchestrator."
My Personal Interests Include:
Integrating Literacy, Music, and Technology into the Classroom; Teaching Teachers about Dialect Speakers and how to bridge from Dialect to the Standard; Self-esteem and learning; Development of higher level critical thinking; More student involvement in their own learning; Motivation techniques; Multicultural education and equity; Assessment that is Intelligence - Fair; New directions in teacher education and technology development training; Collaborating between schools, universities, community and business; Building community among Parents, teachers, students, and business. It distresses me that I can't return perfect work.
From Binary to Ubiquity: Who knew that 0 and 1 would be considered unknown culture makers? PDF
Crafting Culturally Relevant Content Story - PDF
As more and more classrooms are wired, the Internet provides teachers a new gateway to relevant, diverse and engaging content. The Educational CyberPlayGround portal offers an interdisciplinary guide to using the Internet to deliver online curriculum. It provides comprehensive learning resources for different cultural and ethnic groups, and also for those with different approaches to learning. When Philadelphia resident Karen Ellis recalls the memorable teachers in her life, she likes to talk about how they gave her the "building blocks of how the world works." These teachers "gave me the skills to negotiate for the rest of my life."
1. A woman who has power, authority, or ownership.
2. A female teacher or tutor.
3. Something personified as female that rules, directs, or dominates.
4. A woman other than his wife with whom a married man has a continuing sexual relationship.
5. Used archaically as a title prefixed to the name of a married or unmarried woman.
Definition from The Online Computing Dictionary:
webmaster - <world-wide web>
WEBMISTRESS n.
The alias or role - of the person(s) responsible for the development and maintenance of one - or more web servers and/or some or all of the web pages at a web site.
- The term does not imply any particular level of skill or mastery (see - "webmonkey").
- The webmaster's e-mail address often appears on the home page of the site. Failing that, you could try sending e-mail to postmaster (from - which the term is probably derived) or root at that host, possibly after removing an initial "www."
CYBRARIAN n.
A librarian who can maneuver through cyberspace with ease, plucking information from its farthest reaches. The term was coined, according to library legend, by Michel Bauwens, an entrepreneur and founding member of a Belgian think tank called the Fourth Wave, which considers the implications of the digital revolution.
WEBLIGORAPHY n.
A bibliography of World-Wide Web sites, usually appearing on line with hypertext links that let readers call the sites up quickly.
My Better Half
| Karen Ellis + Steve Arone with Star 1998 | Karen, Steve & Mollie 1999 |
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| Newly Weds 7/20/02 | 5th Wedding Anniversary 7/19/07 |
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Barcelona.es
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Just
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"Do It"
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ECP Clients:
- Guavaberry Books
- National Children's Folksong Repository
- K-12 School Directory
- Sosnov and Sosnov Esq.
- Bryn Mawr Urology and UroRehab Inc.
- Wildlife Protection Network
- Mainline Hand Surgery
- Ellis Garage Door
- Crucian Gold
- many more through the years which have left the net.
Snapshot of Guavaberry Books 1996
Notice "Only 0 days left until Year 2000" written above?
Pointed out for old times sake. That clock clicked the days down one day at a time for a whole year.
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
"You may have success in life, but then just think of it - what kind of life was it? What good was it - you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life. I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off."
