This commitment to innovation was recently recognized when Jeanne received the inaugural Jason M. Fishner Innovation in STEAM Faculty/Staff Award. Established by Debbi and Allen Fishner GP ‘32 in honor of their late son, the award celebrates the creativity, curiosity, and inventive thinking that Jeanne models for her students every day.
Jeanne’s primary mission is to remove the fear of failure. “When kids think they have to get something right the first time, they stop taking risks,” she explains. Whether she is teaching robotics or coding, she often learns side-by-side with her students, showing them that even the teacher has to troubleshoot. In her room, grades reflect effort and perseverance, not perfection.
If you walk past her classroom, you’ll likely hear gasps of excitement. Students might be programming rotations and angles to create spirograph designs, or discovering how to make a light blink for the first time. Jeanne takes great pride in creating her own projects rather than relying on prepackaged curricula, a philosophy inspired by her father.
“As a child, I’d work for hours on things that didn’t quite work,” she recalls. “My dad would ask: ‘If it doesn’t do what you wanted, what else can it be? What did you learn? Be resourceful, not wasteful.’” That mindset now guides her students as they navigate everything from complex robotics to the surprising utility of spreadsheets.
Looking ahead, Jeanne is eager to “get under the hood” of new frontiers like Artificial Intelligence. She wants her students to understand the moral landscape of AI—addressing copyright, accuracy, and energy use—rather than blindly accepting what a tool generates. She is also pushing deeper into Python coding for Grades 4–6 and dreams of integrating a consistent “Digital Organization” curriculum.
“We teach kids to clean their desks and organize their lockers,” she says. “Teaching them to organize their digital world—like color-coding folders in their Drive—should be just as important.”
Through every project, Jeanne Weber gives students far more than technical skills. She gives them the resilience and exhilaration that comes from discovering who they can be when they are no longer afraid to try.
