St. Francis School Faculty & Staff

Deborah Hale

Third Grade

I was born in San Diego, California, the middle of three daughters -- born to a young Naval officer and an opera singer who gave up being an opera singer to be a mommy. Both of these wonderful parents unfortunately did not live to raise the three sisters, so the task fell to our grandmother, who was a petite drama queen/drama teacher. All three of us experienced a very eclectic and unusual childhood amidst the influence of various elderly characters from the theatre crowd in Dallas, Texas.  Known then as Deborah Bisenius, I attended high school in Richardson, Texas and thereafter attended several universities while dabbling in many subjects, finally settling on a major in Education. I then got quite serious about education, serious enough to graduate Cum Laude from North Texas. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I married (in my bare feet, no less), and I proceeded to give birth to three incredibly bright and beautiful children. These children are currently in their twenties, and none has yet run for president -- but of course, they are still not quite old enough.

I began my teaching career at the Open Door Preschool during the years when my young children were toddlers; and yes, dear reader, since they were all born rather close together, this meant they were all toddling around simultaneously -- getting into a great deal of mischief in the process. Having survived the toddling, I spent a year teaching at the Austin Waldorf School, and then I spent three years in Houston working at Mrs. Wagner’s School. Since returning to Austin in 1990, I have been teaching at Saint Francis School. I have taught kindergarten and first grade in addition to preschool, but my favorite grade to teach is third grade.

I am currently attending Graduate School at Texas State University, earning a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction. I live with my cat, Zen who is an early riser. I consider myself a songwriter, but only a novice guitar player, even though I began playing almost 40 years ago. I have helped to coordinate the weekly Chapel gatherings at Saint Francis for eleven years, and I enjoy creating puppet shows, for Chapel, that teach values like forgiveness, appreciation of diversity, fairness, and kindness.

In addition to my work at St. Francis, I am the children's program director at my church, supervising a Godly Play Program. I have authored one (as yet) unpublished book of children’s poetry, and I plan to produce a CD of my songs, one of these days.

One of my big life goals is to become "an eccentric" some day, but only when I am old -- many, many, many years from now. (And to my third graders: you may have to look up "eccentric" in the dictionary.)