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ruth gainesdes moines, ia | YEARS TAUGHT: 1971 - PresentRuth Ann created Sisters For Success, a mentorship program for African American high school girls with the purpose of building self-esteem and foster academic success. She also created the Leadership Council that leads the school and community in solving problems of diversity. Ruth Ann implemented a class in Children’s Theater where each spring her students perform a popular children’s play for surrounding pre-school and elementary school students, and created the extra-curriculum performing group The Voices of Change as a result of racial riots in her school in 1995. The students travel throughout the Midwest improvising scenes about cultural diversity and teen issues. This group has received numerous awards including President Clinton’s 1997 Community Involvement Award and the 1997 Race Equity Award presented by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.
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cynthia jonesMurfreesboro, tn | YEARS TAUGHT: 1979 - PresentCynthia believes that a teacher is like the reflectors in a lighthouse. The light or energy of a child is redirected, refined, and magnified. A teacher’s role is to focus and concentrate each child’s light to reflect it back for self-clarification. In her classroom, the inside world is taken out. Her students collected soap, lotion and shampoo samples fo rChristmas stockings for the elderly. Her class voted to not exchange Christmas gifts; instead they adopted two Salvation Army Angels, and collected eyeglass frames for the needy in Mexico.
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kathleen mcgrathocala, fl | Years Taught: 1980 - PresentKathleen’s teaching and learning in the classroom is based on five main concepts. Every child in her class TRIES. TRIES stands for Trust, Relationships, Involvement, Expectations, and Success. She creates a learning environment where students feel safe to take risks and strive to do their personal best each day. Her classroom is a safe haven, the place where anything is possible. Learning is a natural thing in her classroom, a challenge the students accept each day.
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larry statlersan jose, ca | Years Taught: 1972 - PresentLarry helped create the Discovery program that is a model of successful collaboration between special and general educators. The program enables students of all ability levels to work in an environment designed to empower every child to achieve his or her maximum potential while fostering self-esteem and an understanding and acceptance of individual differences. He feels his greatest asset as a person and a teacher is that he never gives up on a child. He states, “Somehow, I will light a flame that will inspire a child who is lost and floundering and give him/her a beacon to follow out of the maze of failure in which he/she is engulfed.
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carol stricklandemporia, ks | Years Taught: 1967 - presentCarol believes that the challenges of teachers today are greater than ever before, but the strength of the teaching profession will prevail. Teachers, do, indeed, affect the future with words and actions. She says that students will not always remember what they were taught, but they will always remember HOW they were taught and how they were treated. She helped implement an Applied Communication class for students with limited English proficiency (LEP) to help them transition from high school into the work world. They focus on career inventories, communication skills, interpersonal skills, writing resumes and letters, and practice interviewing until they feel comfortable.
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