Nona Plessner Lyons

LA GRANGE PARK, Ill. – Nona Plessner Lyons, 90, formerly of Kennebunk, Maine, passed away peacefully Wednesday May 10, 2023, at Plymouth Place Senior Living, LaGrange Park, Illinois. He husband of 54 years, Robert Lyons and family friend, Paddy Homan were at her bedside.

Nona “lived and laughed and loved and left” and the world will never be the same. (James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake).

Nona was born in Manhattan, New York August 17, 1932 to Michael and Norah Plessner. Her education began in preschool at the age of two and continued through Cathedral High School, an all-girls Catholic preparatory school located in the heart of Manhattan. This culminated in her receiving a scholarship to attend St. John’s University, Brooklyn where she received a BA in English (1955). Nona continued to work at New York Telephone throughout her years in college. Beginning in 1956, she taught in NYC public schools. Eventually, she received her MA in English Literature from Fordham University (1961).

While working at Education Development Center (EDC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1963 to 1975, Nona was project director for a new social studies curriculum: The Making of the American Revolution. She was Director of Curriculum for the Scarsdale Public Schools, New York, 1975-1978.

After obtaining her doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (1982), she joined the faculty for ten years. She then taught in teacher education programs at Brown University, University of Southern Maine, and Dartmouth College.

In 2001 she was invited to become a visiting professor at University College Cork, Ireland which led to an appointment for the next 12 years to work with the arts and sciences faculty to create reflective portfolios as a means of inquiring into and documenting their own teaching practices and their students’ learning.

Her landmark book: Handbook of Reflection and Reflective Inquiry: Mapping a Way of Knowing for Professional Reflective Inquiry was published in 2010. Through this book and her teaching, Nona helped teachers develop a greater understanding of their goals and objectives as teachers.

Her final publication with co-editor, Carmel Halton was published in 2015, Learning Over Time: How Professionals Learn, Know and use Knowledge.

Nona is survived by her husband Robert and her brother Michael Plessner (Marian), Connecticut and numerous nieces and nephews. Nona is preceded in death by her parents and by her brothers, Richard and Charles Plessner, and sisters, Katherine Niccolls and Mary Plessner.

Memorials may be directed to the Harvard Graduate School of Education,

13 Appian Way,

Cambridge, MA 02138