Jennifer Chop

Retired after thirty years of teaching a class of preschool children with severe oral language disabilities, Jennifer Chop still thinks fondly of the "good old days" of teaching. She has a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Oriental Languages and an M.A. in Speech and Language Pathology from California State University, Sacramento. With her husband of forty-three years they live in Kensington, California with their two-year old dog, Lucy. Jennifer raised two fantastic daughters, on whom she tested out so many of her theories about child development that they often wondered why their toys went missing. In another life, she might have been a toy inventor. Jennifer has traveled extensively to many countries around the world: rode camels in deserts, watched elephants paint flowers and self portraits, played elephant polo, flown next to the Himalayas, rode horses among the moais on Easter Island. These experiences inspired her to bring the same magic and wonder into her classroom. Jennifer loved studying the ways children learned and figuring out what clicked for them. These challenges and solutions manifested in many "aha" moments. Throughout her career she thrived on dreaming up art projects from interesting children's literature that were fun and messy, and that taught vocabulary and concepts to her students. She loved using magic tricks in her class to get the students to practice their speech and language skills.