Meet Jessica Donovan-Massey of Denver

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Donovan-Massey.

Jessica, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in a house surrounded by literature, poetry, and long conversations after dinner with my dad about whatever I was reading in school. My mom was an English teacher like her mother and grandmother. When I won a chalkboard in an elementary school raffle, I started teaching.

I began teaching Language Arts to 7th graders at Baker Middle School. While it took a minute to get them all running in the same direction, once it happened those 7th graders could learn and do anything. I loved my classroom and the bond I developed with my students. Reading great literature together, conducting research, writing essays, and crafting amazing projects, students thrived, and I was in heaven. Teaching at Baker gave me the opportunity to take the 7th graders camping in Estes Park, on a multi-school trip to Canyon De Chelly in Arizona replanting fruit trees on the Navajo Reservation, as well as directing them in a theater production of Spoon River Anthology. From Baker, I was selected to move to Curriculum Department to help write a reading program, Jump Start, to be used in the DPS Summer school. I spent several years training teachers in DPS and other school districts to use Jump Start in their classrooms. I was an assistant principal for several years, but I really missed the creative freedom and joy that only comes from working with students.

I took a position teaching 9th grade Honors English and 12th grade Advanced Placement Literature at East High School- my dream job! Students were wicked smart, delightfully ornery, and uniquely individual. Learning vocabulary and grammar, they developed into insightful writers. They designed and created projects beyond compare. We would have a project museum inviting administration, other teachers, and students to walk through it. The very best part was the exchange of ideas that comes from taking the time to “Roll Around” in the literature- analyzing, discussing, proving, questioning, role playing, laughing and crying together over each book.

I believe firmly in giving students choices such as pretesting to avoid hideous and necessary assignments, essay prompts, project ideas, and demonstrations of their knowledge. My goal has always been for students to grow in confidence as writers and readers, but more than that I want them to feel seen, valued, and accepted. While working at East, I became a Colorado State certified G/T specialist. I retired in 2018 and began my own business as a tutor and academic coach. Massey’s Table Talk has been effectively supporting individuals grade 2 through adulthood since 2019. Meeting in library study rooms, coffee shops, or private homes, I engage with students through their homework, college essays, heartaches, divorces, and successes. Tutoring individually allows me to be completely available to each student when we meet.

I absolutely love what I do and have been so blessed to have had not only the best and most fulfilling career, but now I have a second act doing what I am designed to do best- facilitate student success.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Retiring from my classroom was so very difficult. I cried; the students cried; the parents cried. I thought I had lost my joy and would never feel it again. One day, a teacher at East said to me, “The magic isn’t in these kids. It is in you! There are kids everywhere who will thrive under your care and coaching.” That gave me hope and started me on the road to my small business: Massey’s Table Talk. Once I started to put the pieces of my business together, things fell in place quickly. Old students called, parents called then suggested my name to other parents, and teachers and counselors at East recommended me to the parents of students in need. Now, I coach and tutor students in DPS and beyond including Jefco schools, Mullen Highschool, Colorado Acadamy, Creighton University, University of Chicago, and others. The hardest part of my work is trying reserve study rooms at the Denver Public Libraries and coordinate meeting times with students. Once we are together working, all is good.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am happily married for 32 years with a grown daughter and two sons.
I specialize in words, literature, theater, poetry and mythology. I am known for being loving and firm. I am able to talk directly to students and have them feel good and accepted. I specialize in building relationships with students that allow them to feel seen, accepted, and valued. I delight in the diversity of students- the wicked intelligent to the wicked ornery- and I specialize in working with them all. Finally, I believe in doing the work, and it will show you what to do. Nothing breads confidence and engagement like success with assignments. Students want to learn, and they want to do well. I specialize in facilitating that effort for each of them.

I have had several awards: I received the student nominated and voted East High Angel Award and I was the first recipient of the Denver Public School’s Rae Harris Award for Teachers of the Gifted and Talented. The awards that I am most proud of however ar ethe student letters, cards, and projects that have been gifted to me. These are treasures beyond all others.

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
The recourses that help me the most are those that help me take care of myself like yoga, trek walking, singing and preforming with my chorus, and gardening. In these times, I think about my students, I develop ideas for them, and I relax.

Pricing:

• 175.00 for a set of 5-75 – minute tutoring/coaching sessions

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.masseystabletalk.com

Image Credits
all my own photos