Teacher Spotlight

There are excellent teachers in every school in Hamilton County.  Even in struggling schools, we always find at least one – and usually several – outstanding teachers who are engaging, dynamic, and great at inspiring students to learn.

This important revelation has become the basis of much of the Public Education Foundation’s work as a partner to Hamilton County schools.  We are constantly looking for ways to capture the great practices of extraordinary teachers and share them with other teachers and other schools who are always looking for ways to improve.  This has led to numerous strategies including the development of teacher coaches, mentors, common planning times for teachers to collaborate and share ideas, frequent classroom observations from one teacher to another, and formal and informal networking among educators with similar roles.

To complement this work, PEF’s communications team has spent the last 18 months highlighting just a few of the many excellent teachers we have met.  We watched Elaine Harper’s class try to figure out why Mentos dropped into different varieties of soda reached different heights of explosion.  We chased music teacher Dustin Dotzler around his room as he kept several groups of students constantly busy and engaged in learning music.  We sorted through a bag of trash with Dionne Upton as she taught her 3^rd graders how to make inferences from the contents.

We visited the depths of the oceans with Penny Hynes’ first graders, laughed as Danielle Lillie’s 5^th graders danced on their desks to learn a song about digestion, and had a very thoughtful conversation with Jeff Paulson as his 4^th graders created their own plays, videotaped them, and posted them on a wiki page.  We rehearsed with Allan Ledford’s theatre arts students, built shadow boxes with Rhonda Lehman-Fraley’s 3rd graders, and enjoyed an extremely tasty lunch prepared by Leon Rice’s culinary arts students.

We were impressed as Michael McKamey’s students asked for MORE HOMEWORK, Theresa Custer’s 5^th graders inflated balloons with vinegar and soda, and Erica Schmidt’s middle school students had thoughtful conversations with one another about math.

Librarian Charlotte Vlasis and a kindergarten class study starfish in her library.

We found Michelle Lowe’s 2^nd grade classroom covered pillar to post with science experiments, and Dianne Kelehear’s students speaking in glowing terms about their love for the hardest class they ever took.  We learned about starfish with kindergartners in Charlotte Vlasis’ library, melted magnesium with Deidre Edwards’ chemistry students, talked with Neva Ransom about using test data to improve student learning, and listened to a grateful new teacher sing Mary Holland’s praises as a mentor.

It’s been a fun and rewarding privilege to visit these teachers’ classrooms.  Share a glimpse with us by visiting www.pefchattanooga.org/ExcellentTeachers , and look for more excellent educators to be featured in upcoming columns!