For Amanda Dolan, Authenticity and Joy are an Art Form
Story by Dylan Howlett | Photography by Kate Auger
8-minute read
It was toward the end of a recent 45-minute conversation — during which she revealed she lived in France for three months as a child; and recently finished a 500-piece puzzle in an hour and 22 minutes while competing with her husband, Jake, in an official speed puzzling competition; and read 100 books in 2024, plus another 82 through the first eight-and-a-half months of 2025; and completed her daily early-morning workout that day after waking up at 4:10 a.m. — that Amanda Dolan offered an apologetic lament. “I always feel like when I read them,” said the Durham Academy third grade teacher, referring to the stories of colleagues featured previously in official DA publications, “people sound so interesting. And I think, I’m not.” That was, of course, after she had told the story of Cassie the Cow.
It came, too, long after Dolan had described her childhood on the Pacific Coast near Montecito, California, just to the east of Santa Barbara. Her mom, Marsha, was one of the first women to attend Harvard Business School; she wrote several screenplays and became a life coach later in life. Her father, William, also attended Harvard Business School and worked as a consultant who specialized in shoring up businesses for the purpose of selling them. Together the Wayne Family traveled the world: to Egypt and its abundant mythology entombed in pyramids, to Poland and the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and to Paris, where Dolan lived for three months with her parents and three siblings when she was in fifth grade. Marsha and William saw travel as an invaluable part of their children’s education.
Dolan would earn hers, formally, at Dartmouth College, where she first enrolled as an engineering major. She learned, in time, that her heart wasn’t in engineering, and she would soothe her academic malaise by enrolling in studio art classes. “It was my thing,” she says. “That sure calmed me, and I loved it.” Soon enough, the courses added up to a degree. That’s how Dolan would get to meet Cassie. Eventually.
Dolan began dabbling in education courses at Dartmouth. She decided she wanted to be a teacher. She didn’t have enough credits to attain the college’s education minor, so she returned to school at Cal State Northridge for her teaching credential. Dolan had, years before, completed an Outward Bound experiential education program in North Carolina. After living on the West Coast and attending college in the Northeast, she figured it was time to try life in the South. Dolan taught third grade for six years at R.N. Harris Elementary School in Durham Public Schools before starting her own college admissions consulting business when her daughter, Maya Dolan ’24, was younger.
Maya would enroll at DA as a student in Sheri-lyn Carrow and Bobbie Dahlgren’s pre-kindergarten class. By the time Maya reached third grade, Dolan considered returning to the classroom. She inquired about substitute opportunities with Lower School Director Carolyn Ronco. It just so happened, Ronco said, that she was looking to fill a teaching assistant’s opening in Jeff Burch’s third grade classroom.
So it was that the prospective engineer-turned-studio art major-turned educator by way of Montecito and New Hampshire found her way to DA — where, two years later, she would become a lead third grade teacher and, eventually, the third grade level lead. Along the way, she has earned the universal respect of her students and colleagues as an outstanding educator whose classroom exudes warmth and demands — with differentiation and care and love — the very best of her kids.
“She is extremely bright and highly disciplined — probably one of the smartest people I know. She is also loyal and honest: If she says she will do something, you better believe she will follow through no matter what. She is one of the few people who will not hesitate to speak the truth. She is unfailingly 'real' and doesn't fib or act false. … She is a brilliant teacher, a good friend, and wise and funny and thoughtful.”
Letizia Haynie
Preschool & Lower School Assistant Librarian
But then there was Cassie. A studio art major, it turns out, never fully retires, even if they’ve flung themselves into a different career. Beth Throop ’06, a fellow third grade teacher, regularly uses models that Dolan has drawn freehand in no more than five minutes to demonstrate an activity’s end product for her students. And when Dolan was a Lower School parent many years ago, the Preschool/Lower School Library team — Dr. Michelle Rosen and Letizia Haynie — commissioned her to create an artistic piece to anchor the new Grove section of the library. Dolan delivered with painted branches tipped with green leaves that soar toward the ceiling and spread like fungi across a pair of structural columns, all stretching from a 3D trunk fashioned from a foam material. “She doesn’t give off that artsy vibe,” Haynie says. “Yet under the buttoned-up exterior, she is highly creative and very talented.”
And it was around that same time that the CowParade — the international public art exhibit that, since 1998, has featured fiberglass cow sculptures decorated by local artists in cities around the world — came to the Triangle.
Dolan submitted a proposal for her design. It got picked. She collected her blank life-sized cow, which was somewhere between 70 and 100 pounds of fiberglass spanning 7 feet long and standing about 4 feet high. It was the summer, and temperatures eclipsed 100 degrees in Dolan’s home garage as she painted the cow in the style of a butcher’s beef cut chart. Each segment featured vignettes from across Durham, including the Museum of Life & Science, the Durham Farmers’ Market, and the distinctive Lucky Strike Tower. Dolan named the cow Cassie. Research Triangle Park eventually bought Cassie at auction to display her at its headquarters.
“She knows how to both support and challenge every student. She knows where every kid is, meets them there and then pushes them to give her their best. She knows who might need a little extra support and who’s already got it, and she’s able to meet all of the different kids in the room based on what they need. That’s exactly what you want to do as a teacher.”
Anna Larson
Second Grade Teacher
A decade had passed when, about three years ago, Dolan heard from a friend whose daughter was taking driver’s ed. Her friend’s daughter had spotted Cassie and a fellow cow behind a shed. Dolan and her husband eventually retrieved Cassie and brought her home, where Cassie now sits on a bed of mulch behind a two-pronged birdfeeder, overlooking the backyard with a contented side-eyed glance.
The odyssey of Cassie is as much serendipity as it is manifestation from the artist, and teacher, who lent her newfound purpose. Before the start of the 2025–2026 school year, the DA third grade team — among the tightest-knit quartets in the Lower School — chose one word to guide their respective years. Erika Kim took “grace.” Throop opted for “calm.” Burch selected “curiosity.” Dolan chose “joy” in the hopes of cherishing all of the little things that she loves about third graders: their journeys toward developing different ways of thinking, accepting different opinions and finding the courage to try hard things, all the while clinging to the purity of childlike innocence.
“It is such a joy,” Kim says, “to get to know Amanda Dolan.”
We think you’ll feel the same. Dolan recently spoke with DA Marketing & Communications as part of a wide-ranging conversation about all of the things that bring her joy, including puzzle-filled afternoons, collaborating with colleagues, and the fierce, unrelenting magic of working with the third graders whom she affectionately knows as Dragons.
Her days are nothing if not interesting.
“Amanda’s grade-level leadership always feels inclusive. She’s found that balance really beautifully of guiding us and leading us while still making it feel like we’re equal members. We have a wide age gap in our team, and I think everyone’s voice feels equally heard — not just in age, but in experience levels, too. She’s really created a culture that’s allowed us all to feel like we’re at the table. She’s also just very open. Especially in my first year or two here, I was in her classroom all the time asking, ‘How did you teach that lesson? How are you going to do that?’ And she was very generous with sharing ideas and her time. I never felt like I was bothering her, even if I was popping in multiple times a day when she has all of her own obligations. She’s so generous with sharing materials and ideas, but she never made me feel silly for not knowing something or feeling inexperienced because I didn’t know something that may seem obvious. I always just could go to her with anything — and she’s still someone that I can go to with any question I’m having.”
Beth Throop ’06
Third Grade Teacher
The following conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
DA: “You have several years of experience in college counseling. Your work on the third grade team — and your commitment to nurturing moral, happy and productive students — transcends producing competitive college applicants. But what parts of your college counseling experience do you apply to your day-to-day work at DA?”
Dolan: “I would say the most important thing is I teach the third graders how to think about things differently, how to listen to others’ opinions, how to process those and maybe adjust their own opinions, or at least accept different opinions from their own, and to ask questions and explain themselves. I don’t know that it directly translates, but when I’m tutoring, it’s really important for students to understand the ‘why’ behind things. Even with third graders, I’m often saying, ‘Yeah, I know you don’t like that, but let me explain. Here’s why we’re doing this.’ It’s just teaching them that there are reasons behind everything. I think it’s about being thoughtful, being problem-solvers, being creative thinkers.”
DA: “Speaking of thoughtfulness and problem-solving and creativity: Your colleagues rave about your math instruction. What’s your secret?”
Dolan: “When you get to calculus, you’ll need to be able to explain it, and you’ll need to be flexible with mathematical thinking. As a third grader, you think you just have to memorize one specific way. I try to get students to break out of that mold and realize they have different ways of thinking. I don’t think when I first started teaching that math instruction was quite as invested in that investigatory sort of approach. It’s cool. I’m passionate about math, and passionate about getting girls to like math. That is a huge thing for me. One of my parents this year said her daughter brought her math work home and that she had been working on the pages she didn’t get to do in class. She said she loves math now. That, to me, is really cool.”
“The students in her room get a really high standard. She has a high academic expectation of them, and she knows how to scaffold down to the kids who aren’t there yet. The other part, for me, is the colleague part. I can go in there and I can say, ‘Here’s the lesson. There are four things. What is the priority?’ And she can see it in the overall continuum: ‘These are the three things that are most important.’ She can help me filter out, but from a kid’s perspective.”
Jeff Burch
Third Grade Teacher
DA: “Third grade is such a seminal year in a child’s trajectory. What is it about this grade level that you love?”
Dolan: “I like that they are becoming very independent. They’re learning to voice their opinions more, but they’re still really loving and sweet. They’ve got that belief that anything’s possible, and they’re so excited about things. There’s not as much worry about what everyone thinks. It’s just pure joy and all about loving what they’re doing. And for me, it’s all about being able to help them see their potential and their growth. I always feel really accomplished when I can get a kid to not be afraid to try something hard. I spend a lot of energy preparing my kids for the fact that something we’re doing is going to be challenging, and it’s going to be great, and you’re going to do really well. One year, I wrote on one of the math papers of a girl in my class something along the lines of, ‘Great job. I can see you put a lot of effort into this. I’m really proud of you.’ It wasn’t all correct. But she ended up putting the paper on her fridge because of the comment about working really hard and trying really hard on this. I try to really teach my kids that effort is so much more important than perfection or correct answers.”
DA: “We know your daily gym routine involves a 4:10 a.m. wakeup. But what’s your daily puzzling routine?”
Dolan: “I’m a huge puzzler. I love puzzles. I’m always doing 1,000-piece puzzles. It’s meditative and calm for me. I love my job. It’s super intense. You’re answering 50 million questions all at the same time. And then I go home and I’m puzzling or reading, and it just brings the nervous system down. Every afternoon, I puzzle on my dining room table. My husband and I joke that we never eat there now. It’s just my puzzles. I have a baker’s rack that is filled with 1,000-piece puzzles. Last year, I started a monthly puzzle period in my class where they work on jigsaw puzzles. It engages their brains in different ways. I just want them to feel like it’s not just academics all the time and that there are such clear-cut lines. I’m trying to show where those habits and skills crisscross and where you can kind of bring them together. It’s really cool.”
“I think her consistency kind of just flows through everything that she does. You’re going to get consistent classroom management. You’re going to get a consistent experience in your lessons. You’re going to get a consistent thought partner. You’re going to get a consistent person who’s up for doing arts and going and trying something new. You know what to expect. There’s a safety in that where you think, ‘I am safe to be in a colleague relationship. I am safe to be in a friendship.’ She is super consistent and dedicated, and everything that she loves, she loves it and does it well.”
Ashley Hinton
Second Grade Teacher
DA: “And you’ve even added a speed component to your puzzling, correct?”
Dolan: “You go and you get a 500-piece puzzle, and it’s just a race to see who can finish it first. It’s pretty much like going to trivia night. My husband and I did it for the first time last month, and it took us an hour and 22 minutes. Pretty fast, right? The first-place team did it in 35 minutes.”
DA: “Your daughter, Maya, went to DA from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. What was it like watching her during her journey at this school?”
Dolan: “I really liked watching the way the school rallies around their kids. They know their kids so well that they’re able to do that extra thing for them and really look out for them. She’s now a sophomore at Middlebury College, and she’ll say to me, ‘I want to be in this class, so I’ve just started emailing the professor. I went and met with him to see if I can get in.’ She’s got this confidence and this ease with understanding that this is your person who is going to advocate for you, and you just have to ask the right questions, and they’re there to help you. DA has really helped her go after things she’s interested in. I think just being in a community where the divisions are so interconnected has made her really confident to want to try things. This year, she learned how to downhill ski and cross-country ski. She even joined the cross-country intramural team. She had never done it before, and she said, ‘Well, Mom. I’m the worst one, and I don’t compete. But it’s so fun, and they’re so nice to me.’ Talk about not being afraid to fail and not worrying what people think. I think DA helped her achieve that and helped her pursue the things she loved.”
“I went through undergrad and grad school hearing about reflective teaching: ‘Always be reflective in your teaching. You should always reflect on what you’re doing and what your students are doing.’ But Amanda models being a reflective educator in a way that feels authentic. She is the model of authenticity. She’s 100% Amanda Dolan. And it’s not in a way that’s abrasive or unapologetic, but it’s just 100% herself. I think her modeling her authenticity and her authentic reflection is something I really want to try to do in my years of service as an educator. She’s just so cool.”
Erika Kim
Third Grade Teacher
DA: “For nearly 10 years, your classroom has been known as the Dragons. How did you settle on that name?”
Dolan: “Everyone does the alliterative name. When I found out I had gotten the job as a full-time third grade teacher at DA, I remember asking my students in Mr. Burch’s class, ‘What should I call my classroom?’ They said, ‘You should be the Doritos.’ (Laughs.) I thought a lot about it, and nothing really stuck. But then I thought of dragons. I loved that they were kind of fierce and magical and sort of just bigger than life, you know? It just made sense to me. And then I found this quote from J.R.R. Tolkien that I stuck up on the wall of my classroom. It says, ‘It isn’t an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons.’”
DA: “We know you’re an avid reader: You’re on pace to read 100 books for the second consecutive year. What are your favorite books to read with students?”
Dolan: “The Dot is one I always read. It’s an artistically beautiful book as well, which is one of the reasons I love it. It’s about this little girl who thinks she’s bad at drawing. She’s really frustrated. And her teacher says, ‘Just draw a dot.’ Then she says, ‘Now sign your name to it.’ And the teacher puts it in this gold frame by her desk. The girl decides, ‘Well, I can do better than that.’ Then the class starts painting all of these dots — big ones and small ones and these really interesting looking pictures. And they have a whole art show of all the dots they make. This little kid says to the girl, ‘Wow, you’re so good at art.’ And the girl says, ‘Just draw a dot and sign your name.’ It’s all about passing it on.”