‘Inside Edition’ anchor calls education ‘a door to freedom’

Published 11:52 am Wednesday, August 3, 2016

DALTON, Ga. — Our teachers never really leave us, says Deborah Norville, a Dalton native and anchor of the TV news show “Inside Edition.”

Norville spoke Tuesday morning at the trade center as part of the convocation for the kickoff of Dalton Public Schools’ new school year, which starts Monday for students.

“You will be a part of your students’ lives for the rest of their lives,” said Norville, herself a product of Dalton Public Schools, to the teachers in the audience.

“The education you provide to your students is absolutely a door to freedom for them,” she said. “It is noble work that you do.”

Norville said her “own personal magician” was Louise Eddis, a teacher at Brookwood School. She said she would constantly raise her hand and ask questions in class. Eddis would tell her she’d asked a very good question, then tell her to go to the library, research the question and come back with a report for the entire class.

“It took me about three or four reports to realize that what I was doing was interrupting a lecture in which she would eventually answer the question,” Norville said. “But what she didn’t know, and what I didn’t know, was that she gave me my career. She gave me a gift. A gift of learning that what I wanted to know I had the ability to find out. I went into journalism because I wondered about stuff. And she gave me the permission to wonder and to learn and to share. That’s what I do as a reporter.”

After graduating from Dalton High School, Norville attended the University of Georgia, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She began her TV career while still in college, working for Georgia Public Television and for WAGA-TV in Atlanta. She later worked in Chicago and for NBC News, including a stint as co-host of the “Today Show.” Since 1995, she has served as anchor of “Inside Edition.”

She serves on the board of directors of Viacom Corp. and has her own line of yarns. She has also authored several books, and she drew on one of them, The New York Times bestseller “Thank You Power: Making the Science of Gratitude Work for You,” in her presentation.

“Research tells us that there is a huge connection between gratitude and resilience,” she said. “And just as important as resilience is respect. Respect is a tool that can be used across the board in education to positively impact every aspect of your school.”

She recounted a story from the book involving Susan Ward, a high school classmate who now teaches at Dalton Middle School.

“There’s one teacher in this room who found that treating kids with respect made a huge difference,” Norville said.

She noted that Ward normally taught gifted students but one year was assigned a class that was struggling.

“She told them, ‘Everyone knows I teach the smart kids. That means this year you are the smart kids,’” Norville said. “Simply telling those kids from the get-go ‘I believe in you’ made a huge difference,” Norville said, noting that their test scores improved dramatically.

Ward said after the presentation she did not know that Norville was going to tell that story.

“When she started telling it, I realized where she was going and was a little embarrassed,” she said. “But I’m really proud of her, and I’m glad she came back. Her success speaks well of Dalton Public Schools.”

Sheree McEntire, who teaches at Dalton Middle School, said having Norville speak was not only inspiring to the teachers but also to students.

“It’s important for our students to see that they can become successful and that they can make it in the real world,” McEntire said. “Here’s someone who once attended the same schools they do, who once sat in the same classrooms, and she’s a TV star, a best-selling author. It shows their dreams are something they can achieve.”