Four Slue Members Receive Kohl Fellowships
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| Elkorn Middle School teacher
Susan Hammerly and a student show off a holiday project. |
Teachers are always delighted to be recognized for the work they do. One
of the most coveted recognition awards in Wisconsin is the Kohl Fellowship
Award. This year four SLUE members are recipients of the 2002 award. Those
exemplary teachers are Susan Hammerly of Elkhorn Middle School; Jahnalee
Kawalec and Kris Tibbetts, Salem Grade School; and Amy Rudd, Lake Geneva
Middle School.
High School students also receive awards in the categories of excellence
scholars and initiative scholars. SLUE area students receiving those awards
came from East Troy, Elkhorn, Williams Bay, Union Grove, and Big Foot.
The awards bring a monetary award to teachers and the district. The recipients
and their families were honored at a grand banquet and pictures with Senator
Kohl on March 17, 2002. In addition, as Susan Hammerly says, "You
are in a room full of a lot of awe inspiring people."
Susan Hammerly teaches sixth-grade English at Elkhorn Middle School with
a group of four other teachers. She stresses that the teachers are a team,
" We support each other and help the students learn how to make a
difference in their community," she says.
Susan is very proud of a school-to-work simulation called Dessert Playhouse,
which she helped develop, and coordinates for the sixth grade. She describes
the activity as, "It's an interdisciplinary project where the 6th
graders run a white tablecloth, candle lit restaurant to serve homemade
desserts to customers, and their families on the evening of the Christmas
play. The students have all the jobs at the restaurant and theater: servers,
chefs, escorts, and performers. Under the direct of teachers, the students
even do all the baking of the homemade desserts, beginning weeks in advance.
My English classes complete letters of invitation, as well as the training
for the servers, chefs, and escorts. Reservations are handled through
social studies. Decorations are created in math class. Literature class
provides all the plays. From our advance baking days to set-up and clean-up
the night of the playhouse, all of the students are engaged and eager
participants. After they leave sixth-grade, our students and their families
still comment on how they remember and enjoyed our candlelight Dessert
Playhouse."
"When it comes to teaching, I believe the 'I's' have it,"
Hammmerly says of her personal educational philosophy. "I believe
that students should be immersed in literacy and language. My classroom
has examples of student and professional writers as models for young readers
and writers to see, use, and emulate."
She also believes that students need some individualized activity. Whether
the student process or product is altered, Susan believes projects or
lessons can be adapted to fit the level of the learner without removing
him or her from the classroom community.
"On the other hand, I also believe that learning may be a very interdependent
activity. As adults we often seek out the advice and help of others, yet
for years we have denied young learners these same advantages for learning.
In my classroom, we might use collaborative groups or partners when we
approach a new skill for the first time or when we brainstorm, plan draft,
and revise pieces of writing," Susan says of her third 'I.'
Integration of technology into the classroom as a tool, not a separate
entity, is my next educational principle," says the six-grade teacher.
"When students give a presentation, I teach presentations software
in conjunction with their research. We then have business letters to send
we review or introduce word processing. Databases, overhead projectors,
and computer display panels are all examples of techniques that need to
be integrated into the students' handbag of literacy tools."
"Finally, I believe education is often interdisciplinary. In my
class, we learn prepositions and poetry through art. We learn research
and note taking with science and social studies. We run a restaurant and
theater in partnership with technical education, family and consumer education,
math class, and very generous community businesses. Adult life-the real
world-is interdisciplinary, and sometimes my classroom is too," relates
Hammerly.
In the future, Susan would like to return presenting at seminars. "I
would like to present the Dessert Playhouse project to the Wisconsin Association
of Middle Level Educators," she says," and would also like to
present on middle level writing, particularly directed revision."
She would also like to continue to expand writing across the curriculum
in her team and take post-graduate classes that present kinesthetic methods
to teach in the classroom. The Kohl fellowship money would be wisely used
on any of those goals.
Posted March 27, 2002