Hartland Graduate Adds In Personal Formula to Help Students as Detroit Charter School Teacher

If one of her students needs a wake-up call to make sure they make it to school on time, Lynne Grady grabs her phone.

If one of them needs extra math tutoring, she stays late — sometimes to 11 p.m.

If one of their adult relatives needs help to earn a GED, she ekes out time during her lunch hour.

To her boss at Detroit Community High School, a charter school of about 600, Grady's commitment and deeds parallel Hollywood movie scripts about brilliant educators.

But to the 1983 Hartland High School graduate doing whatever it takes to enhance learning is just part of her mission as a math teacher. She said it is a way to ensure she can deliver a message to students who might already face social and economic problems about the real-world job opportunities mastering equations and formulas can provide.

"You're filling in for some gaps in people's lives," said the 46-year-old Canton resident of her role as mentor and tutor. She credits her Hartland teachers, such as former chemistry teacher Sue Merrill, for setting standards of going the extra mile if needed by focusing on teaching the student, not just a subject.

"To be successful, that's what it takes," said Grady, whose maiden name is Rhodes and whose mom, Paula, once served on the Hartland school board.

And Grady's efforts were recognized last week when she honored at a luncheon as one of five finalists for Michigan teacher of the year for charter schools.

The honor was no surprise to her superiors and the families she affects.

"We need a 1,000 teachers like her," said Sandra Daniel, a 60-year-old grandmother who came in at lunchtime to re-learn algebra with Grady's help so she could help her then-struggling grandson, Malik, who now two years later has passed and likes math.

"She was just so patient. … It's 'old school' in my eyes. It's something she loves. She has a passion for teaching."

Dave Hartwell, the charter's deputy superintendent and chief academic officer, said Grady's exploits are so well-known in the community, people walking in seeking help often ask for her.

"She lives (the job) every day," he said. "(She) is the real deal."

A patient path

All the attention is humbling, according to Grady, who said she realized more than 20 years ago she wanted to teach when she enjoyed getting up at 5 a.m. to work with students as part of an environmental youth program more than her job as an engineer at General Electric in Cleveland, Ohio. She loved taking inner-city children to see anything they hadn't been exposed to before — such as taking them to see ducks or to her office to see what her job was about.

She preferred that chance to make a difference in someone's life quickly versus the long-term change engineers often strive for over a career. But realizing her new found passion took time as she and her husband moved to Canton, where she became a stay-at-home mom, operated a home daycare and served as a PTA president — experiences that she says laid the groundwork to become a teacher.

Yet, her first teaching job would be a challenging one. She took a post at a school in Detroit, a city scarred with problems of poverty, blight and crime, knowing she would be an outsider as someone with a white, suburban upbringing at a nearly all-black school.

She said she prayed over whether to take the job, but ultimately did in part because she felt a need to give back — her grandfather worked long hours as a brakeman on the railroads in inner-city Cleveland, a story her father James used to teach her the importance of education in upward social mobility.

"If I were in this for the money, I'd stay in engineering," she said. "For me, the rewards are different. I feel compelled to be here. It's a mission."

So, she threw herself into the job, soaking up and joking with her students about white-black cultural differences such as when she was surprised to learn from her students that there were more ways to make macaroni and cheese than simply following the directions off the blue box.

Now, she says she's confident enough to use a common slang greeting in school: "What up doh?"

"There's no right way or wrong way; it's just different," she said about the culture differences.

"I feel like this is my family … You just become part of the community."

'Math dork'

As much as she loves her students and getting to know them, a passion for numbers is behind it all.

"I am a big math dork," Grady said. "If you give me a math problem and I could not solve it, it would keep me up at night."

So, key to her teaching philosophy is to always illustrate how math fits into the real world and can encourage critical thinking. 

"Engineering is applied mathematics," said Grady, who majored in metallurgical engineering while earning her bachelor's degree from Michigan Technological University. "You can see the use of what teaching math provides."

That outlook helped students, such as Malik, whose academics were suffering with two parents who worked full-time. So, in addition to helping his grandmother, Grady also tutored him.

"It changed his feelings about school," said his grandmother, Sandra Daniel. "(His problem with math) was starting to carryover in other classes."

Grady said what's critical, though, is she's not the only educator who does more than required. And all the extra work she does wouldn't be possible without her supportive husband, Kevin Grady, she said.

"It's just amazingly humbling," she said. "There are so many teachers who do phenomenal things. It's not me, it's us."

And she said whether she won teacher of the year (she didn't), that's not really what's important. What is, she says, is being back at work the next day doing what she loves: learning about her students and teaching math.