Top Teacher Candidates Know How to Get Best From Their Students
Sep. 18–Contra Costa County’s Teacher of the Year will be unveiled this week at a banquet that also celebrates the careers and accomplishments of 20 premiere educators from every corner of the county.
The three finalists include Gay Grieger-Lods, a former travel agent and lifeguard whose midlife career change touched the lives of hundreds of Richmond first-graders; Deborah Berry, a Delta Vista Middle School teacher with a passionate, no-nonsense approach and a wicked sense of humor; and Sandra Gill, an Edna Hill Middle School instructor who always knew that teaching was her destiny.
GAY GRIEGER-LODS: A decade ago, Grieger-Lods’ clientele was considerably older than the 6-year-olds she serves now. She was a travel agent — skilled at her job but, somehow, unsatisfied.
“Something was missing,” Grieger-Lods said. “I decided I wanted to work with kids.”
Grieger-Lods decided to reinvented herself. She took water safety and lifeguard courses and went to work at the Richmond Plunge, the historic indoor swimming palace that closed in 2001. Wonderful, she said, but she wanted more.
Twelve years later, the nationally certified master teacher holds court in a first-grade classroom at Richmond’s Wilson Elementary School, just a few blocks from her home. She works with fellow teachers, encouraging and supporting them during the long and arduous national certification process.
And the 58-year-old plunges heart and soul into her classroom.
“She goes beyond the call of duty to make connections with her students,” said Wilson principal Sonja Neely-Johnson. “We have a large bilingual population and she realized it’s important for her to communicate with parents.”
Grieger-Lods enrolled in local Spanish language classes and spent her summer vacations in Spanish immersion programs in Mexico. Those skills translated directly into her work, not just in the classroom but with students’ families.
“She does her report cards in Spanish. I think that’s awesome,” said Neely-Johnson. “She is able to communicate with (parents), help them feel connected. Not only is she making a difference right here with the students and families, she’s going beyond the classroom. She’s pretty phenomenal.”
SANDRA GILL: It’s the light bulb effect that has kept Sandra Gill coming back to the classroom for nearly three decades.
The 53-year-old Brentwood teacher knows it can be tough for her eighth-graders slogging through the arcane language of the Declaration of Independence, but Gill is as enthusiastic as they are when they finally understand what the document is all about and why they should care.
“It’s so rewarding when you see light bulbs going on and kids getting things,” said Gill, who teaches language arts and social studies at Edna Hill Middle School.
Gill, who joined the Brentwood Union School District in 1982, was born to be a teacher: She grew up loving everything about school — “I loved the smells, the sights, the sounds” — and was still in elementary school when she decided to make teaching her life’s work. It never occurred to her to do anything else.
Thirty years after starting her first job, Gill still believes she’s helping kids discover the fun of learning.
DEBORAH BERRY: Oakley math teacher Deborah Berry still remembers her first day of teaching, when a mouthy seventh-grader in the back of the room warned her that he and the rest of the class were going to run her out just like all the others.
“They were rotten! They were horrible,” recalled Berry, who seriously considered quitting that first year.
But with a friend’s encouragement and the gut feeling that she was a good teacher, Berry proved her challenger wrong. Ten years later, the 38-year-old not only is still at Delta Vista Middle School but knows exactly how to maintain the upper hand and get the best out of her students.
No guff. No excuses. Just be on time, do the work and know that failure is not an option.
“I don’t let them live down to lower expectations,” said Berry.
By the end of the year, she says, many of them not only have changed their attitude about math but feel better about themselves.
By Rowena Coetsee, Jackie Burrell and Martin Snapp
—–
To see more of the Contra Costa Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.bayarea.com.
Copyright (c) 2005, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.