Some of you have asked about joining the zoom on Wednesday, 11/20 at 6PM ET, when we will have a short shiva service, followed by sharing of memories of our mom. If you want to join, please request the zoom link by posting a comment to this or the prior post, and I will email you the zoom information.
Thanks to those who have reached out or shared their memories of Joanne. Keep ’em coming!
Alan Yatvin
With sad hearts we announce that Dr. Joanne Yatvin passed away peacefully on Sunday, November 17, 2024.
For 45 years Joanne was a deeply committed, involved, and accomplished educator. After graduating with a degree in English and Dramatic Arts from Douglass College (Rutgers) she became an English teacher in middle school; taught English as a foreign language for two years in Puerto Rico, where she learned Spanish, and then returned to the United States to continuing teaching; Joanne and her family moved to Madison, Wisconsin in 1963, where she taught various grades, eventually being promoted to Chair of the English Department at Madison Memorial High School; earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum Development and Applied Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1974; became an elementary school principal at Crestwood Elementary School; was the proud winner of the Wisconsin Principal of the Year Award in 1985; relocated to Portland, Oregon in 1987 where she served as the superintendent/principal of the Cottrell School District; and worked part time as an adjunct professor at Portland State University.
Joanne’s other professional pursuits included conducting independent research in high poverty Oregon schools; writing three books discussing curriculum for teachers (later translated into other languages); serving as the sole school-based reading professional on the congressionally mandated National Reading Panel until 2000; and serving as the 2006 president of the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English). In addition to her books, which continue to sell to this day, Joanne was a frequent contributor to professional publications, as well as her hometown papers, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. As an experienced and highly successful teacher of children and other educators, Joanne was a powerful advocate for a “whole language” approach to teaching reading, and an outspoken critic of the so-called “structured language” flavor of the moment programs.
In 2015 Joanne started “the treasure hunter” blog at joanneyatvin.org, where she wrote mostly about education, because: “I continue to care deeply about the profession I’ve served. I will be a critic of its faults and a supporter of its strengths as long as my head and hands still work together.” In later years, she also wrote wittingly, unwittingly, and wittily about her life and struggles, as her memory and communications skills started to fade.
Joanne met her late husband, Milton Yatvin, Ph.D., in college. He was studying agriculture at Rutgers University while Joanne was studying at Douglass. During their 66-year marriage, they loved to travel abroad, go to concerts, movies, and the theatre (one of Joanne’s favorite pastimes). In addition to living in New Jersey, Madison, Portland, and Puerto Rico, they spent Milton’s sabbaticals in Belgium, England, and Israel. Following Milton’s death, she moved to Philadelphia to be closer to family. Together Joanne and Milton raised four children: Alan, Bruce, Lillian, and Richard.
In her free time, Joanne loved spending time with her family, a good book, swimming, cross country skiing, writing, and cups of tea over long games of Scrabble. Joanne will be remembered through many seven letter words, like scholar, courage, and devoted.
Joanne will be greatly missed by her sister and life-long Scrabble adversary, Helen Kapner, and her four grandchildren, Jeremy, Sarah, Daniel, and Jordan.
The family will be sitting shiva and receiving friends on Wednesday, November 20th from 5:30-8:00 PM, at the home of Alan and Laura Yatvin, 6391 Overbrook Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19151. Contact Alan if you would like to attend virtually.
In lieu of flowers and cards, friends and family are asked to donate to the Lillian Aked Yatvin Scholarship Fund at the University of Wisconsin-Madison set up by Milton and Joanne in memory of their daughter, to support students in the School of Social Work, at
Unfortunately it was a long time before I was able to see my good friends again. But now I am able to write about them. I hope that all of you will be able to know what has happened because I tried to make my computer produce everything correctly so all my readers can read them. If any of my words have ben written wrong please remember that I am very old now and once I was a good writer.
Today I feel very proud to tell you that I can doo exercises regularly with a group of good women. But most of the other men around us do not do any exercises in the morning. Apparently they prefer to rest in the morning and do there work later.
t our men won’t come outside for in the morning. They prefer the afternoon and do there exercises at that time. Many of them like to play their games and other activities longer in the daytime.
When an afternoon begins there may also be aparties in our building, and that brings many people together. Every one who likes being with there friends also enjoys good food.
Right now I have nothing more to tell you about our exciting activities. But I will write to you again if we decide that we should also be good workers
When I came into our school this morning I was ready to work hard on the exercises we have ben practicing. But I was very surprised that I now can do difficult movements that I wasn’t able to make earlier. Because our exercising room is now much cooler than it was before all of us have ben able to do our activities much better than we expected.
Since most of us produced much better work than we expected I wondered what gave us all that power. From my opinion a surprising good change is more like a blessing than it can be a mistake. Because cool air has ben staying with us for sum time I thought the sky must be getting ready to give us a good world that would stay with us for the future. So we will all feel ready to do our best work and make our world a much better place than it was before.
All the positive changes I have wanted to see seem to be coming to us quickly and they are good pieces for our country. Our new buildings that were once very tall and shaky are now stronger and lower than they were before. So many of the people who were staying away from them are now going happily inside, but many of them are waring masks to make sure they will not be harmed by othrers that might be unhealthy.
I believe that our world will soon have clean air and strong buildings again. But that cant be done by magic. All of us need to work carefully to do our ability of health and fairness. We must also build a clean world and keep it that way for all the children who will be coming to us healthy and intelligent.
When I was just a young girl my family moved from their old home to the city of New Jersey. I was very happy to be there because my family believed that the school was the right place for me to learn. They were very proud to give me a good education. My parents just rented a new building where there are two large bedrooms for my parents and one more for me and my sister Helen. Fortunately, it was large enough for both of us. We got new bouncy beds and tables big enough for the toys that our father made fore us recently.
As we moved into our new city I was old enough to chose a good school near our home. Outside it there was a big playground that was a good place for us to exercise when our schoolwork was done for the day. So I very soon began to play games with new girls I met who were about the same age and size I had. And when I fell down the girls would pick me up and brush the dirt off my cloths.
When I entered our new school I met more young girls who became friendly with me for a long time. When we played big hard games I sometimes fell on the ground, but they helped me to get up and I finally became an adult. Then I was able to have better health, intelligence, and physical attractiveness. I also managed to stop falling on the ground completely, and most of my scars finally melted away. So I became a good young woman with a sweet face, a healthy body, and the ability to teach young children. At there school they worked hard and performed very well for a long time on a school stage.
As I grew older I moved back to my family’s home. But shortly after that I met a man who became my husband and we had several children. Later we moved to Europe where my husband began working as a scientist for many different animals. He was very successful in various countries where we chose to stay. However, after several years living and working together my husband died unexpectedly. So I moved back to the United States and continued to work as a teacher in American schools. I began as a first grade teacher and finished as a school principal for two large schools. At that time I was a praised teacher because of my work, ethics, and my desire to teach students in the best ways I thought possible. When I grew older, I turned to writing about how children and their teachers should be treated in all American schools.
The Treasure Hunter 