A Family Affair: Literature, Learning, and Legacy at All Saints'

Whether you visit Beth Carson's middle school English classroom or Catherine Durbin's first-grade room, their love of literature is clear. The mother and daughter bring the same infectious passion to their teaching. Though they teach vastly different age groups, both spaces hum with the same energy: student questions ring out, and a deep passion for the English language fills the air. They inspire the love of reading, writing, and words in their students; however, their impact is far greater. As our Middle School ELA Department Chair and Lower School ELA Curriculum Coordinator respectively, their influence extends far beyond their own classrooms—shaping how every student at All Saints’ learns to read, write, and think.

It’s not uncommon to find myself interrupting Catherine or Beth mid-conversation at Department Chair meetings—usually deep in conversation about something essential, like the Oxford comma—to get started. These two educators truly live and breathe English Language Arts. They are constantly discussing best practices in teaching, great books, or ways to engage students by asking higher-level questions about the text they’re reading.

For Catherine, nurturing young readers is nothing short of magical. “There’s nothing cooler than working with a kid and seeing them get excited when they see reading everywhere for the first time,” she explains. “As a teacher, you get to watch it click, and you get to see the student learn to walk with language. Once the brain connects and figures it out, it’s a moment of unleashing.”

That “unleashing” continues in Beth’s middle school classroom, where students read, analyze, and wrestle with big ideas. This is where reading and literature come to life. “Yes, we read amazing books in middle school like To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankenstein, and Tuck Everlasting, but then the students have to take language and link emotion to reading,” she says. Her students debate where the soul lives while reading Frankenstein, act out original Shakespeare with feeling, and annotate margins with their evolving questions. “It’s cool to be smart at All Saints’,” Beth notes, and she sees that transformation happen year after year—students grow from discovering a beloved series in fifth grade to presenting sophisticated analyses of The Book Thief in eighth grade.

The Carson-Durbin legacy at All Saints’ runs deep. Catherine is herself an alumna, as are her siblings. She and her husband exchanged wedding vows at the Church, and now her own children walk the same halls she once did. “I credit the All Saints’ community with shaping my character and helping develop my love of learning, and I’m thrilled to see that continue in another generation.”

This passion for literature and language reverberates through our entire ELA program and teaching community. At a recent professional development session, several teachers presented on topics related to ELA and language: Mariana Morrill and Elizabeth Hunninghake presented on the science of reading, Teri Morkert discussed the importance of read-alouds in class, and Elizabeth Benoit shared a fascinating presentation on Spanish words we frequently use in the Southwest and where they come from. This work demonstrates the collective expertise our faculty brings to literacy instruction. Many of our teachers hold advanced degrees with an ELA or reading focus, from master’s degrees to Ph.D.s.

And, no conversation about literacy at All Saints’ would be complete without mentioning Julie Isaacson, our beloved Librarian, who has been cultivating young readers for years, first in the classroom, and now in the Lenhardt Library. Students and parents are welcome to stop by the library after school on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 3:00– 3:30 p.m. and on Fridays from 3:00–3:15 p.m. to discover new books to enjoy.

When a mother and daughter both dedicate their careers to teaching—and both choose to do it at All Saints’—it says something very profound about this place. I have no doubt that any school would be overjoyed to have Beth and Catherine as faculty, but they’ve chosen to build their legacy here, ensuring that every student from first through eighth grade experiences the joy of language, the power of literature, and the thrill of ideas. 

The love of reading is alive at All Saints’ because of our educators—teachers who move beyond instruction and inspire students to read, think, and write with purpose and passion.