Kentucky Teacher

Seneca High School Principal Michelle Dillard molds clay bones with students as part of the One Million Bones project. Photo submitted

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

Seneca High School art teacher Beverly Silletto had helped students create the clay bones for their public service project raising awareness of genocide. She’d helped gather them and helped put them in her two kilns.

But it wasn’t until she and her students were ready to remove the bisqueware bones that the project really hit home for them.

“When you opened up the kiln, the first things you saw were white bones – and they really do look like bones,” Silletto said. “It is so moving just to open that kiln and see that. The first time I saw that it made me gasp, and it made me think of concentration camps with all those bones.”

Students at multiple schools in the Jefferson County school district, including Louisville Male High, Olmsted Academy South and Seneca High, participated in One Million Bones. The national project raises awareness of genocide by encouraging students and artists to create clay bones that will be placed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in June.

Seneca students created 3,057 bones, the most in the district. Each bone will generate a $1 donation through the Students Rebuild organization to support humanitarian relief and rebuilding work in Central Africa. Read the full story

First-grade teacher Heidi Dees presents a student’s family glyph at Deer Park Elementary School (Daviess County). First-grade students at the school were studying families and diversity through the IB unit entitled “Who We Are.” Photo by Amy Wallot, Sept. 25, 2012

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

When Melanie Page applied to teach at Young Elementary School (Jefferson County), she wasn’t sure how the school could be using the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. The native Georgian had graduated from an IB high school – so the idea of teachers using inquiry-based instruction, speaking French and encouraging students to think globally at a school where 90 percent of the students are on free or reduced-price meals didn’t fit her concept of IB as a program for the affluent.

Now in her first year as a 4th-grade teacher at the school, Page realizes how wrong she was.

“There is no set IB student. These kids are very able and are doing excellent although this is a Title I school and they have other obstacles that they come in with, but you would not know,” she said.

Young Elementary and Deer Park Elementary School (Daviess County) are the only two Kentucky schools of about 335 in the country using the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) for students 3 to 12 years old, according to the International Baccalaureate organization. The primary program focuses on inquiry-based learning and a global world view. Read the full story

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

Kentucky Elementary School Teacher of the Year Heidi Givens of Tamarack Elementary (Daviess County), 2013 Kentucky Teacher of the Year Kristal Doolin of Corbin Middle School (Corbin Independent) and Kentucky Middle School Teacher of the Year Allison Hunt of duPont Manual High (Jefferson County) were named during the annual ceremony in Frankfort.
Photo by Amy Wallot, Oct. 17, 2012

Kristal Doolin, a 7th-grade language arts teacher at Corbin Middle School (Corbin Independent),  has loved reading and writing since she was young.

“I just love words,” she said.

It is this love of words that lead her to become a language arts teacher. It was her love of teaching about words that lead her to be named the 2013 Kentucky Teacher of the Year.

Doolin, who also was named Kentucky Middle School Teacher of the Year, received the award Oct. 17 at a ceremony in Frankfort hosted by Ashland Inc. and the Kentucky Department of Education. Heidi Givens, a teacher of deaf and hard-of-hearing students at Tamarack Elementary (Daviess County), was named 2013 Elementary School Teacher of the Year. Allison Hunt, a social studies teacher at duPont Manual High School (Jefferson County), was named 2013 High School Teacher of the Year. Read the full story

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

Principal Roger Wright talks with Erica Edwards about her upcoming graduation during their weekly meeting at the McDaniel Learning Center (Laurel County). Wright meets with each student at the center on a weekly basis. Photo by Amy Wallot, Sept. 7, 2012

Four first-time alternative education Best Practice Sites have very different missions and students, but they share one important thing in common: the belief that all students will learn at a high level.

They also offer students something less tangible but no less important: hope for a brighter future.

Six of the 10 schools named Best Practice Sites have achieved the honor before. But four – Maryhurst School (Jefferson County), McDaniel Learning Center (Laurel County), Monroe County Falcon Academy and Morehead Youth Development Center (Rowan County) – were named for the first time this year.

Maryhurst is a public school housed at a residential treatment center for girls aged 12-18 who have been severely abused and traumatized, according to Associate Principal Jill Tabor. While treatment is the top priority at Maryhurst, the school follows district and state curriculum guidelines to ensure students are academically equipped for college and prepared to function in society, she said.

Even though most of the girls are exempt from taking state accountability tests, the school has initiated numerous programs to help remediate students who have fallen behind and provide enrichment to those who are gifted. Read the full story

 By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

Louisville Male High School (Jefferson County) teacher Jeff Wright experiments with building Knudsen pumps during the High School Teacher Fellowship Program at the University of Louisville.

Heather Packard spent four weeks of her summer vacation driving four hours a day to the University of Louisville.

What inspired the Bellevue High School (Bellevue Independent) biology, forensics and integrated science teacher to make the daily trek? Her desire to get hands-on experience working with nanotechnology.

“If I’m not continually learning personally, how can I take my students beyond what we’ve always done? Do I want to kind of change what I do in my classroom in theory, or do I want to be a better teacher because I am growing personally?” she asked. “I’m here because I like it. I want to continue to learn and I feel it makes me a better teacher. Even if I don’t take any techniques from that laboratory directly to my classroom, I can’t help but take the experience. Continuing to learn helps my students learn.” Read the full story

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

University of Louisville MAT student Jason Cooper and Jeffersontown Elementary School (Jefferson County) teacher Fife Wicks participate in an activity about subject-verb agreement during the Grammar for Teachers professional development at Westport Middle School (Jefferson County).

When Lynette Ward was in high school, one of her teachers asked the class if it wanted to do a second unit on debate or one on grammar. The class picked debate, of course, said Ward, now a 6th-grade language arts teacher at Bullitt Lick Middle School (Bullitt County).

Ward said she never received a good education in grammar, which presented a problem since it is littered throughout the Kentucky Core Academic Standards for English/Language Arts.

“I was nervous because I felt like I didn’t have the instruction,” she said. “So I’m going to be learning a lot with my students. But it’s important, because I want to sound intelligent and I want them to sound intelligent.”

Patti Slagle, a retired English teacher from Jefferson County, said Ward is not alone.

“A lot of teachers did not have direct instruction when they were students, and they certainly did not have direct instruction when they were in college,” she said. “So there are some teachers who are concerned about teaching this content because they don’t feel they have a strong command of grammar for instructional purposes.” Read the full story

By Amy Wallot
amy.wallot@education.ky.gov

Teachers from around the state had a good time learning about Shakespeare and how to make his work more accessible to their students during the Shakespeare Set Free Institute: Scholarship, Performance and Pedagogy. The two-day professional development opportunity was held for middle and high school teachers. Much like students, teachers also enjoy learning more when the activities are interactive. This professional development gave them that chance and they had a great time.

Megan Burnett, an assistant professor of speech and theatre at Alice Lloyd College, and Aaron Taylor, technical director for the Hardin County Schools Performing Arts Center, act out a few lines from Henry V during the Shakespeare Set Free Institute presented by the Actors Theatre of Louisville, The English Speaking Union/Kentucky Branch and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Photo by Amy Wallot, June 18, 2012

Seneca High School (Jefferson County) teacher Kimberly Draewell, Assumption High School (Jefferson County private) teacher Jessica Williams and Indiana University Southeast education graduate Sherry Dour react to being called insults from Shakespeare during the Shakespeare Set Free Institute. Photo by Amy Wallot, June 18, 2012

Folger Shakespeare Library master teacher Kate Breen leads the class in an activity during the Shakespeare Set Free Institute. Photo by Amy Wallot, June 18, 2012

Seneca High School (Jefferson County) teacher Sahara Myers gives Shakespearean compliments to other teachers in the room during the Shakespeare Set Free Institute. Photo by Amy Wallot, June 18, 2012

All teachers who participated in the Shakespeare Set Free Institute received a Shakespeare Set Free toolkit. Photo by Amy Wallot, June 18, 2012

Graves County High School drama teacher Laverne Waldrop shares ways to get students to think about emphasis in text during the Shakespeare Set Free Institute. Photo by Amy Wallot, June 18, 2012

Ruth Ann Driggers teaches Spanish classes through the JCPS eSchool. Driggers has been with the program since its beginning in 2000. “I found it a really great opportunity after 31 years in the classroom. I can use that content knowledge to help students online,” she said. Also pictured is English teacher Erik Nicholson.

The school bell rings and a student looks up from her smartphone, where she’s been chatting via Facebook with a boy from Brazil. They are working collaboratively on a project about each other’s home country.

The teacher, skyping from a neighboring district, in Portuguese tells the girl and her classmates to take the first 15 minutes of class to use their smartphones or iPads to answer the question posted on the interactive white board. Many students start by looking in their e-textbook, which their teacher compiled before the semester started. Others simply go to Google.

Once the 15 minutes are over, the teacher directs the students to a website where they have to use what they have learned to help an Indiana Jones-like explorer complete missions. It’s more like a video game than a quiz, but the teacher can tell by how they do who did the work and who didn’t. She’ll send those who didn’t do well an e-mail with links to the information after school, along with an assignment for them to turn in – electronically, of course – the next day.

This and similar scenes will be typical in Kentucky schools if David Cook at the Kentucky Department of Education and other drafters of a recent report can bring their vision to fruition. Read the full story

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

Joe Gutmann watches over students creating hallway posters to remind fellow students to watch their language during his law and government class at Central High School (Jefferson County). Photo by Amy Wallot, Jan. 31, 2012

Joe Gutmann, Central High School (Jefferson County) law and government teacher, believes that building a better world starts in schools and is carried out into communities. So when he got opportunity to partner with the state government agency that enforces the laws that make discrimination illegal, he knew it was a natural fit.

“The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights is a very important agency,” he said. “Certainly its mission and goals are similar to what we hope to achieve in our classroom: helping others, protecting the rights of others.”

Gutmann, a licensed attorney in his 11th year in the classroom, asked his junior law and government students if they would like to be part of a new organization that would address and seek solutions to civil and human rights concerns that are often encountered in their school. Virtually his whole class agreed to participate, Gutmann said.

The Youth Human Rights Council isn’t like a Student Council, which can be a political contest between the most popular students, he said. Read the full story