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Meg Graham, Mukwonago
11/17/2009 4:03:05 PM
It was National Board Certification that changed the career direction of Meg Graham, Spanish teacher at Mukwonago High School. It was not an easy decision to pursue the certification. Graham was so unsure that she would succeed that she deliberately chose to sign up on April Fool’s Day. She achieved the certification in 2004 and has been on a roll ever since.
Graham became a much more reflective teacher during the certification process. She threw out what she now considers useless busy work and replaced it with whole language approaches to second language teaching. Others have taken note of her new style. She has mentored many of the more recent National Board teachers. She has published a series of books through Carlex and has adapted some of those books into courses.
This year Graham was named the Teacher of the Year by the Wisconsin Association For Language Teachers. This honor recognizes her achievement as a regular contributor to WAFLT and as an outstanding teacher.
“It’s exciting to represent Wisconsin,” Graham said.
The WAFLT award puts her in a regional competition of 16 others. The winner of the regional competition then becomes a competitor for the National Foreign Language Teacher of the Year.
Although she has many activities outside of the classroom, Graham still is enthusiastic about creating new teaching strategies and ideas. This year she has a new favorite activity. Students are given miniature toy animals. Graham practices prepositions of place with the class. Next, each student is given a map of South America. The toys are directed to different countries. After several minutes of play, she puts an outline on board. Students draw in countries from memory. Without direct geography instruction, her students have learned it.
“I like to see them learning when they don’t even know they’re learning. That’s my favorite learning,” Graham said.
In the next few months Ms. Graham will remain busy. She is currently finishing work on Spanish for Educators. It is an online course that she is creating for the WEA Academy. The course will be available for college credit. The class is meant to benefit teachers by providing strategies to speak Spanish quickly.
Graham continues to emphasize the need for professional development and communication.
“It’s so easy to get in a rut in the classroom,” she said.
In order to maintain a forward progress, she likes to see what other teachers are doing and to seek new learning opportunities for herself. In fact, her view on the regional award was both humble and evidence of the importance of professional development.
“I don’t expect to win but I’m looking forward to meeting others and getting ideas,” she said.
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