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I Used To Be ... And Now I'm ...: Retired School Teacher To Interim School Head
Joan Countryman was retired but had two job offers she couldn't refuse: One from Oprah Winfrey, the other from the Atlanta Girls School.
by Mary Welch
October 25, 2007
J
oan Countryman used to be retired. After being a school teacher and administrator,
including running the all-girls Lincoln School in Providence, R.I., for a dozen years, Countryman
retired.
"I was retired and very happy to be retired," she says. "I had been an educator all my life,
and I wanted to retire, write and spend time with my family."
But then Oprah Winfrey called. She wanted Countryman to get her $40 million school in South
Africa up and running.
"It's very hard to say no to
Oprah Winfrey," she says with a laugh. "And of course, the opportunity was too exciting. I went
from an established school that was always struggling for money to a new school that didn't have to
worry about money. It was like being a kid in a candy store."
She flew to Johannesburg in August 2006 for two weeks and ended up staying until March.
Countryman became the interim director and launched the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, a school
at the time of 152 students. The plan is to add one class each year until the enrollment reaches
450 students in grades seven through 12. For the first class, almost 4,000 girls applied for
admission.
"South Africa is, of course, a new emerging democracy, and this was a school for girls who
will grow up to be the future leaders of South Africa, Africa and the world. I interviewed the
girls, we developed the curriculum, hired the teachers, developed the mission statement and dealt
with Winfrey and the ensuing publicity," she says. Oprah Winfrey is just like she is on television.
"She's the way we want her to be," she says. "She's extraordinary. She's smart, funny and manages
her wealth and celebrity well."
It was important to Winfrey and Countryman that a South African be the permanent head of the
school. In fact, the new head is Nomvuyo Mzame, a South African school administrator who had worked
in Philadelphia at the Germantown Friends School, where, Countryman, a Quaker, finished in the late
1950s as the school's first black graduate. So with her replacement hired, she retired and went
back to Rhode Island.
"Yes, I was retired again!" she says. Then she got a call from the Atlanta Girls School,
which needed an interim director. Opened in 2000, the AGS provides a single-sex education for girls
in grades six through 12. "Actually, I was on my way back to South Africa for a visit, and I said
that I would visit. And then once I got here and saw the school and the girls, well, I couldn't say
no." So Countryman reverted again to the category of "used to be retired " after she accepted the
position as interim head of the AGS. What appealed to Countryman was the "spirit and enthusiasm for
learning and excellence"of the students, she says. "It's very compelling."
She concedes that a girls school's appeal to some parents is that "it will be like a bunch
of cloistered nuns, but it's not true." In fact, she says, girls who are in a single-sex school
tend to be more vocal and questioning than those in coed schools. "They get a greater sense of
self. The list of the value of a girls school is too long. But at the top of the list is that it
provides the space for young women to broaden their horizons."
Countryman is passionate about women broadening their horizons in math and science. "Mothers
of daughters have to stop telling them that it's hard and that they can't do it; they can do it,"
she says. "Math and science are fun, but I believe we have to teach it more creatively, more like a
process and a dialogue instead of a series of formulas and rigid answers."
Countryman believes that in coed settings girls are more afraid than boys to voice a wrong
answer, so they view math as more threatening than other subjects. "We have to make math more
interesting, less threatening and then open up the possibilities."
She points out that girls school alumnae major in math, engineering and science at a higher
rate (13 percent) than either girls (2 percent) or boys (10 percent) nationwide. And they are more
than twice as likely to earn doctorates as girls in coed schools. The daughter of a public school
teacher, Countryman vowed she would not become one. "And I resisted, but education is so critically
important, I was drawn into the profession. I believe we have to pay more attention to education
and honor our teachers more. It is so important to have strong public schools. They ought to be
better." She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., and has a master's degree
from Yale University. She studied at the London School of Economics as a Fulbright Scholar. She
taught math for 23 years at the Germantown Friends School and wrote on the subject of girls and
math. Her publications include Writing to Learn Mathematics and Is Gender an Issue in Math?
Obviously Countryman's passion is education. "I have a deep belief in a democratic society.
In order to get people engaged in a democratic society, you have to have good schools. We have to
teach people to think – to think about the environment, leadership, working together, math,
morality and philosophy. We have to fill them up with knowledge, not mostly worthless facts."
Countryman is active in the AGS' search for its permanent leader. Although she is enjoying
her stay at the school, she nevertheless is looking forward to her next job – being a retired
school administrator. "I love Atlanta, but my husband is home in Providence, and I have two
children and four grandchildren I want to spend time with. I have a lot of projects," she says. But
at the end of the school year, she mostly wants to just be retired.
