Our Town: Annan Paterson
"One Heart"
By Mark Langton/Staff Writer

The 33rd in a series of profiles of people who make Novato what it is.

ADVANCE PHOTO BY THOMAS K. SORENSEN
 

"I come from the standpoint that everybody has a gift, " says Novato school psychologist Annan Paterson.  Annan Paterson wears almost as many hats as Imelda Marcos wears shoes.

As she begins to describe each of them — school psychologist, social activist, actress, parent, cancer survivor, wife — she actually dons an invisible hat, miming it for you as she speaks, her hands flying about her head, at once passionate and demure. This is this hat, this is my head. This is me, and this is you. First you put on your socks, and then you put on your shoes.

This hat
Hat No. 1 is school psychologist with the Novato Unified School District. Hers is an ordered world, that spins amidst adolescent chaos. It is a full-time job, five days a week, working with several schools in the district doing assessments in the area of special education.
 

Her job is to assess students for learning disabilities, looking for everything from attention deficits to garden variety emotional distress, determining whether or not a student might be eligible for special education programs.
“A lot of times I find kids who are unusually gifted, creative, who think out of the box, who just happen to be challenged in terms of traditional learning and education,” Paterson said.
 

“I come from the standpoint that everybody has a gift,” she said. “A big part of my job is to find it, especially if it’s not readily apparent, and use it to help that child — tapping into that child’s potential, finding that one thing, that strength, and say, ‘WOW, Johnny, Maria, you’ve got this gift, now let’s use it to make school better.’”
 

Often, says Paterson, it can be a creative streak or something as simple as a sense of humor. If a kid’s face lights up with music, “Bingo,” she said. “That can be used to teach math, or reading, or social skills.”
 

This is nothing new, she says. “Teachers and psychologists in the trenches have been doing this for years: Find the strength — and go from there.”

This head
Annan Paterson, 47, knows from trenches. Born in Paterson, N.J. in 1955, the oldest of six kids, her father took a job at UC Berkeley as a professor of English literature before she was a year old and moved the family to California.
 

Berkeley in the ’60s was an interesting time to enter adolescence. Where do you go when everyone is running away to your neighborhood? All around her was social change, literally in the air she breathed (“If you count the tear gas”), she said.
From the trenches of Berkeley, Paterson moved to a rural part of Fresno County in 1979, starting her professional life working as a psychologist in court schools with juvenile delinquents.
 

She stayed for 17 years.
 

Paterson was politicized by the experience. “I started listening. Particularly during the last six years or so. I was doing anger management, and one kid said to me, ‘What do you know about our anger? You don’t live where we live. You don’t go where we go. You don’t know what we know.’
 

“I realized he was right. And it was at that point that I began to listen.”

This heart
Paterson gets it now.
 

“Now, by the age I am, and as passionate as I am about civil rights, I get it. Growing up and being around teachers who taught me about Martin Luther King, Jr., watching the struggle of African Americans, the women’s movement — those movements gave me my core set of values, standing up for what was right, standing up for people who are minimized, excluded, or placed on the fringe.”
 

Her conscience has led her to co-chair United Safe Schools Novato (USSN), a group of Novato residents who advocate for what they call “inclusive educational policies and practices,” regardless of “actual or perceived race, ethnicity, gender, ability, sexual orientation, religion, class, appearance, language or national origin.”
Paterson takes great care to separate her day job from what she calls her social justice work.
 

“I want to make it very clear that my diversity work is not with the school district, but as a volunteer in the community. It’s the hat I wear as a parent.”
 

To those who would complain that it is all too politically correct for words, she points to one of her mentors, recently-retired Novato Police Capt. Reginald Lyles.
 

“Reggie says it’s not about political correctness. It’s about good manners. If you would prefer to be called ‘woman’ over ‘girl,’ then that’s what I will call you. That’s not ‘p.c.’ That’s because I care about you.
 

“That’s not political. That’s what you call polite.”

 

Reprinted from the Novato Advance

http://www.novatoadvance.com/news.html#dfgad