Annette Stoller has been teaching literature at Fieldston for many years and has enjoyed an unusual connection to a fellow English teacher in the Fieldston community: Ms. Charlotte Stabenau is her daughter. This dynamic duo of English educators shares the same passions but came to the profession in very different ways. Ms. Stoller recalls knowing she wanted to become a teacher from a very young age: “When my younger brother would have his friends over to play, I would make them sit on one bed and I would sit on the other and be their teacher.” One could certainly consider that childhood play that ends up prophetically becoming practice for one’s profession. Before settling in at Fieldston, Ms. Stoller taught at Hamilton College and made her mark in history as one of the very first full-time female faculty members.
Ms. Stoller’s daughter, Ms. Stabenau, clearly shared her mother’s passion for teaching adolescents and literature but it was a true “aha” moment in college that led her to the same career path as her mother. In college, Ms. Stabenau participated in an in-class exercise where she had to teach the meaning of a poem to her fellow students. She loved it. As a result, Ms. Stoller enrolled in a teacher training program at Tufts University and opted to become a high school teacher. Considering all the conventional ways that a mother-daughter relationship can so often become contentious, competitive and or interrupted by life complexities, their personal bond is as impressive as their teaching acumen. “We’re almost, not quite, friends,” Ms. Stoller began, checking her daughter’s facial expression for a response, “and I would say that we are and, in addition to that, now we’re colleagues.”
While sharing the same professional community, the mother-daughter team also enjoys other activities outside of the classroom. “We love spending time with family, seeing art, music and dance together. We also love to be outside and go shopping together—especially department stores,” explains Ms. Stabenau. There is clearly a passion for all forms of artistic expression in the DNA of this family. The family speaks German as well as English and always come back to their original love of literature. “I think we share a love of two books, including Pride and Prejudice (and almost all of Austen’s novels) and George Eliot’s Middlemarch,” explained Ms. Stoller, “We love Nineteenth Century literature and Victorian poetry because there’s just so much happening at that time and it’s reflected in the literature,” she finished. What makes them both such exciting teachers in their own right is also the way they relate to students in the here and now and hope to forge a connection between modern times and the literature that hearkens back to a century (or more) before.
It’s interesting to consider the value in exploring interests and honing in on a craft that naturally becomes a profession. Literature is definitely an art that explores the concept of community. Books, reading and talking about books certainly brings students together. Books can offer a value system, explore human nature and characters or describe life themes that come up in reality. A book can inspire a passion or motivate students to pursue a passion or craft. Having teachers in the Fieldston community that found their careers so easily could very well inspire students to do the same. Ms. Stabenau doesn’t know if future generations in her family will follow in the same footsteps but hopes “they find something that contributes something positive to their communities. I’m lucky to have found my calling, and I hope they do too.” Other generations of students learned about literature and read books without the aid of computers, phones, TV shows and movies.
Kids today are so involved in their phones and the visual aspects of learning beyond reading. Growing up, parents tell their kids to shut off their devices and pick up a book. But that doesn’t always have to be the case. Maybe movies as reenactments of books are helpful and make reading and exploring themes more connected to classic literary themes and books. “The movie Clueless! is at the top of our list,” Ms. Stabenau explains, “But you’ve got to read Jane Austen’s Emma as well if you want to call yourself a true Clueless! fan. Hot take,” she quips with a smile. Who would’ve seen Alicia Silverstone as Jane Austen’s Emma? (As if!!!!) Only teachers that can seamlessly forge connections between the past and where the present is headed. We are lucky to call this mother daughter team a part of Fieldston’s community.
