Leisa Morton-Standish, PhD

Director of Elementary Education

Dr. Leisa Morton-Standish is the Director of Elementary Education at the North American Division.

She has taught in small rural schools as well as in large urban schools. She has taught on the east and west coasts of the U.S, both in and out of the Adventist education system, and overseas. She has also spent a considerable part of her career teaching at universities, including the University of Maryland, Washington Adventist University and Macquarie University.

Leisa holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Maryland, an MA in Education from California State University and a Diploma in Education from Avondale College.

Leisa is committed to Christ and the ideals of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Her first love is the classroom where she can share her passion for learning and her love for Jesus.

n 1873, Fanny J. Crosby penned the words to Blessed Assurance, a beautiful hymn which was sung with gusto by my beloved grandfather holding the hymnal in his work worn hands, stained with the years of working in the garden as head of grounds at the Adventist Hospital in Sydney, Australia. A convert to Adventism in his 20s, with only a seventh-grade education, he knew the Bible back to front and gave Bible studies in his homegrown style, along with a box of organic vegetables, to everyone from the widows in his neighborhood to the business owners he worked with to the gas station clerk.

As I reminisced about his delivery of the three angels’ messages, that he knew and understood like the seasons of the garden he cultivated, it got me thinking, Do our young people know The Three Angels’ Messages? Are they able to articulate them and live by their principles like my undereducated but highly Biblically literate granddad?

To engage our students in the three angels’ messages, the NAD Office of Education is excited to offer a new, distinctly Adventist, resource for our K-12 schools. Dr. Sandy Doran has authored the Three Angels Curriculum for Kids that is a free 2-week curriculum available for all our schools.

It is an experiential, interactive, integrated unit that is engaging and exciting for kids as they learn the messages of the three angels and understand the deep spiritual principles of our faith. Dr. Doran has included lesson plans, authored books and provided deep critical learning experiences for students as they engage in the content of the three angels’ messages.

As curriculum and creative director at Three Angels for Kids, a unit of Adventist supporting ministry Hart Research Center, Dr. Doran describes the unexpected surprises as miracles, as she developed the school curriculum. “Why did I take on this curriculum?” she asks. “Because God gave the assurance every step along the way that this is what He wanted me to do. Whenever I doubted myself or needed reassurance or felt that I didn’t know which direction to take, God would put it very clearly in my mind. … I am humbled.” NAD Adventist Journey/Adventist Review, October 2020, p. 65

The curriculum will be available early December 2020 from the 3-Angels website: www.threeangelsforkids.org, in the resources tab on the NAD Adventist Education website and from AdventSource. Training videos for teaching the units are available on ALC, and a virtual Week of Prayer by Dr. Doran, that will lead our children to the feet of Jesus and provide a sneak peek into the Three Angels’ Curriculum for Kids, will be launched in January 2021.

Please pray that this curriculum will impact our children for the Kingdom, and contact Yvonne Tait (yvonnetait@nadadventist.org) for more information.

“Angels descending, bring from above, echoes of mercy, whispers of love.”