Duke School Under the Oak Magazine, Summer 2014

STAYING
CONNECTED
lower east side of Manhattan for two years before
moving to Wisconsin for her husband’s doctoral
studies. She taught third grade in Wisconsin,
then preschool in Princeton, New Jersey, before
settling in the Durham/Chapel Hill area in the early
1970s and teaching two- and three-year-olds.
public schools will use this tool when planning
their goals and curricula. While participating in
this think tank, Marilyn had the chance to work
with a special new collaborator - her husband.
Peter is a developmental psychologist at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and,
studied the history of jazz and ballet, Haiti, Ernest
Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald and other
literary expatriates in Paris, and the Trojan War
through the works of Euripides.
Marilyn has passed her love of learning and
Marilyn’s expertise with Duke School’s projectbased
curriculum began when Margaret Mason,
then curriculum director, sent her to a workshop
with Drs.Lilian Katz and Sylvia Chard – the creators
of the Project Approach. Margaret realized the
benefit of this particular type of learning and
chose Marilyn to gather the first information on
it because of her extensive background in early
childhood education.
somewhat surprisingly, this is the first time their
related careers have ever directly crossed paths.
Outside of formal education settings, Marilyn’s
hobbies include teaching, as well. This fact isn’t
that surprising as she says, “teaching is in me from
the top of my head to the bottom of my toes!”
Through a UNC partnership program, she has
been working with a Burmese family teaching
both a six-year-old student and his father.
teaching on not just to her students and fellow
teachers but to her family, as well. One of her
daughters is a clinical psychologist at the ADHD
Clinic at Duke University, working with families on
how their children can become successful learners.
Her other daughter is a preschool teacher at
Duke School. Miriam Ornstein and her co-teacher
Maureen were actually the first pair of Duke
School teachers with whom Marilyn consulted on
the Project Approach after her retirement.
with Marilyn Ornstein
Few people have a history with Duke School like
Marilyn Ornstein. Marilyn began her tenure at
Duke School in 1982 in the midst of an already
well-established early childhood education career.
Since retiring in 2011, Marilyn has continued to
share her wealth of knowledge at the school
partially as a substitute teacher but more often
as a consultant, working with teacher pairs on
their training in the Project Approach, the specific
project-based style of learning in which the school
has become a leader.
A New York City native, Marilyn went to school at
Queens College and taught second grade on the
As Duke School integrated the Project Approach,
Marilyn’s expertise became sought after throughout
the North Carolina education community, not just
by private schools but by the public sector as well.
The Randolph County Partnership for Children
not only sends representatives to Duke Schoolhosted
educator workshops, but has requested
that Marilyn travel to them multiple times over the
past few years for extra education on the Project
Approach.
Marilyn has also been part of a number of books
and pamphlets on early education published by
the NC Department of Public Instruction including
“the North Carolina Guide for the Early Years” and
“Learning Through the Eyes of a Child: A Guide to
Best Teaching Practices in Early Education.”
Recently, Marilyn was part of a think tank
sponsored by Duke University’s Sanford School of
Public Policy and the North Carolina Department
of Public Instruction. This group created a
learning and development assessment tool for
kindergarten through third grade. It is hoped that
Marilyn also currently volunteers with the Durham Head of School Dave Michelman calls Marilyn an
Literacy Council, where she tutors a woman from institution and a treasure. “Her knowledge of
the Republic of Guinea who had no education in
her first language, let alone English. After working
for years with young children who come from
a literate background, here was a student who
didn’t even know how to hold a pencil. It required
a different way to approach teaching her to read.
project development and the extensive work she
has done with new teachers is invaluable,” he says.
Not content to be a subject expert, her sharing
of knowledge with current teachers will benefit
children for years to come, not just at Duke School
but all over North Carolina.
After about three years of
working together, this woman
recently passed her citizenship
test, and Marilyn was there to
see her sworn in as an American
citizen.
When not furthering the
education of others, Marilyn
embodies Duke School’s
mission of lifelong learning
in her personal life. She is a
regular student of the Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute
(OLLI) at Duke University. In
the past few years she has
Marilyn attending her student’s Naturalization Ceremony.
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