Grace A. Warner, a longtime Great Neck School District educator whose sixth grade class was featured in a 1952 Life Magazine spread about progressive teaching methods used at Saddle Rock Elementary School, died on Saturday. She was 96.
Warner, who lived in Manhasset for the last 40 years, had a 35-year career in Great neck, starting as an elementary school teacher and later becoming the first principal of John F. Kennedy Elementary School in 1965, a job she held until her retirement in 1984.
In more recent years, Warner served as corresponding secretary for the retired chapter of the Great Neck Teachers Association.
Warner was born in Brooklyn to Margaret and George Warner and grew up in Queens, graduating from Cathedral High School in Manhattan and earning bachelors and masters degrees from Hunter College in the early 1940s. She went on to earn a Professional Diploma from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1953.
Her teaching career began at School No. 5 in Oceanside in 1941, and prior to arriving in Great Neck in 1949 was a sixth grade demonstration teacher at the State University of New York at Buffalo, which at the time was known as the State Teachers College at Buffalo.
She began her time with Great Neck at the former Arrandale School and moved on to Saddle Rock Elementary School when it opened in 1950.
By 1961, Warner was named assistant in curriculum at Elizabeth M. Baker School. The next year, she became principal of the Arrandale School until taking over at John F. Kennedy Elementary School.
The Great Neck School District were the subject of a nine-page, Nov. 17, 1952 Life Magazine photo spread featuring Warner’s sixth grade class at Saddle Rock.
The photographs and corresponding article focused on what the magazine considered “interest-centered learning,” the idea that teaching is more effective when students enjoy what they are learning.
In the article, Warner is also praised for her ability to maintain her class’s discipline during the school day.
“Under a less skillful person, the system Miss Warner uses might go completely to pieces with the students running things instead of the teacher,” the article says. “But in class Grace Warner displays a quiet efficiency based on a good sense of discipline. Along with a complete grasp of her pupils’ individual frailties and habits, she has an uncanny facility for spotting trouble that may be brewing across the room and stopping it before it starts.”
Even outside the classroom, Warner’s life seemed to center around education. She frequently spent summers as a demonstration teacher at several universities, including the University of Wisconsin, Syracuse University and Harvard University.
Warner, who was unmarried, is survived by nephew George M. Warner Jr. and niece Gail A. McDevitt, five grand-nieces and nephews and 10 great-grand nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by nephew Robert W. Warner and niece Maureen A. Bearman.
A wake is scheduled for Friday at the Fairchild Funeral Home in Manhasset from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. A funeral mass is set to take place Saturday at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Manhasset at 10 a.m.
Warner will be buried following the mass at Calvary Cemetery in Queens.
