Cool teachers you should know: Brandy Clark, Brooklyn's MS 313

Brandy Clark, a 4th year teacher, grew up in both Oklahoma and southern California. For two years, she taught speech, drama, and debate in Oklahoma City at Belle Isle Enterprise Middle School. She then moved to New York, which her nominator, John Thompson, says “fits her personality” (this is the ultimate compliment in my book). This is her second year teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math and science special education at M.S. 313 in Brooklyn.

Check out her favorite lesson from a unit on simple machines. Ms. Clark explained, “As a class we use our knowledge of potential and kinetic energy to build miniature catapults. We recycle used milk cartons, sporks, and rubber bands to hurl mini-marshmallows at targets and into each others mouths. The students enjoy competing to see who can pitch a marshmallow the farthest.”

A believer in the idea that the best way for her class to learn about the world is to see it for themselves, Ms. Clark takes her students on a variety of trips. She wrote, “This year we have done everything from visiting the Magic Johnson Theater in Harlem, to watching the St. Luke’s chamber orchestra perform, to touring the neighborhood gathering rocks for our unit on the earth and the rock cycle.”

Her advice to new teachers? “Every lesson is an opportunity to allow your students to work with their hands to get messy. New teachers should understand that it’s okay not to be perfect. Making mistakes and acknowledging them allows students to see a human side to their teachers and allows the students to feel free to make their own mistakes as they learn.”

Ms. Clark is also active in supporting student activities outside of the classroom – in Oklahoma, she was the technical director of a musical theater production and also directed one theater production. In the picture above (she’s on the left), she agreed to go on stage with her students as a mock KISS band - Ms. Clark explained, "There was a fog machine and strobe lights as we lip synced with cardboard instruments." That’s commitment.

Keep up the good work, Ms. Clark!

You can nominate a cool teacher you should know by emailing me at eduwonkette (at) gmail (dot) com.

Cool teachers you should know: Toni Molnar-Port

Toni Molnar-Port is a 9th year Biology teacher at Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey. Born and raised in Trenton, Ms. Molnar-Port's commitment to her hometown led her to take a job at the high school she attended.

Her colleague reports that Ms. Molnar-Port emphasizes experimentation and laboratory work in her classroom. As a result, her students come to see themselves as "scientists in training." One of her favorite units is environmental science, in which she takes students to the local marsh to collect and test specimens of all kinds. During her summers, Ms. Molnar-Port has coordinated and led a science camp for middle school girls from Trenton and Philadelphia.

Ms. Molnar-Port is not only an expert teacher herself, writes her colleague, but "the kind of teacher that you are always grateful to have down the hall. Whether you are pulling your hair out or celebrating a small victory, she's the go-to person for support." She is known at her school for reaching out to new teachers to provide mentoring, and is currently hosting two student teachers.

Her advice to new teachers? Ms. Molnar-Port provided this excerpt from a guide for new teachers that she wrote with a colleague:

1. Build relationships — get to know your students, their families, your colleagues, and your school’s local community. Think of the time spent building these relationships as an investment, one that will pay off for both you and your students. People are experts in their own lives, and their insights may have valuable implications.

2. Search for your students’ strengths—it is very easy to make a list of things people don’t know or can’t do. Find opportunities for all students to be successful. Make sure you provide opportunities for your students to demonstrate to you what they already know and can do. Once you know this, building upon these strengths often comes naturally. Labels can help identify some students for extra support, but all too often they become the lens through which we view someone. Resist this temptation.

3. Examine your own perspectives, and understand those of others—try to look at what you teach and how you teach from someone else’s point of view. What messages are you sending, intentionally and unintentionally?

4. Include students' own experiences as a springboard to learning whenever possible; this keeps the content relevant and allows students to make important contextual connections.

5. Consider that learning to teach is a lifelong process—approach your teaching with questions that relate to your goals. Keep track of the things that you’d like to improve or change, and follow through.

6. And most of all, be kind to yourself. Allow yourself to make mistakes, and ask others to allow you to set things right when you do. Extend this courtesy to your students as well. If they came to us perfect, we’d hardly need to teach them at all.

Keep up the good work, Ms. Molnar-Port!

You can nominate a "cool teacher you should know" by emailing me at eduwonkette (at) gmail (dot) com.

Cool teachers you should know: Lori Murphy, South Newton High School

Lori Murphy is a 15th year high school art teacher at South Newton High School in Kentland, Indiana. Ms. Murphy grew up in Rensselaer, Indiana and then studied art education at Ball State University. She has been teaching at South Newton ever since.

Her nominator, colleague Karen Molter, reports that Ms. Murphy has a classroom full of energy, and so much demand for her courses that she has to turn students away! Her courses are diverse, ranging from Photoshop and website production to 3-D art. Ms. Murphy is well-known for using e-learning in her classes and for supporting her colleagues in integrating technology (you can find her syllabi and a really neat virtual art gallery of her students' work here).

In her spare time, Ms. Murphy is an active artist, selling ceramics and photographs and working on professional website creation - check out some of her own work here (great holiday gift ideas). Her colleague sums up by saying, "Most importantly, however, Ms. Murphy does all these things with a smile and genuine concern for others."

Keep up the good work, Ms. Murphy!

Give us all the weekly dose of educational anti-depressants we need by nominating a great teacher today - send me an email at eduwonkette (at) gmail (dot) com including their name, school, subject/grade, and a few sentences explaining why you were moved to nominate them.

Cool teachers you should know: Katie Hillstrom, Winchester High School

Katie Hillstrom is a 7th year English teacher at Winchester High School in Winchester, Massachusetts. According to her nominator, she is well-known in her school for her infectious energy that touches everything she does, whether it is teaching a unit about Walden (Her lesson plans on Walden are available here and have some fun ideas and activities) or engaging her students in service-learning projects.

Of particular note is an exchange Ms. Hillstrom organized between Winchester High School (a suburb of Boston) and Boston's English High School. Through this project, two ninth grade honors English classes at Winchester High School (WHS) collaborated with two classes at English High School (EHS) in an exchange designed to dispel stereotypes, build relationships across the socio-economic divide, explore urban/suburban educational equity, and brainstorm action steps to address these issues.

Students from WHS received “e-mail pals” from the EHS classes, so they were emailing each other and getting to know each other before the Exchange even occurred. Then, students from WHS spent one day at EHS, participating in relationship-building activities, touring the school, and listening to EHS students discuss the day-to-day challenges of attending an urban school. The project was designed to help the students involved by exposing them to a world outside their two very different communities. Here is the Massachusetts Department of Education's description of her project, from which I've quoted liberally.

How did this project affect students? Here is an excerpt from one of her student's evaluations of the project:

“True or false: Every child under age 16 in the United States receives education of an equal quality, regardless of race or wealth. Last year, I would have answered “true” to that statement. However, in March, my English class took an eye-opening field trip to English High School in Boston. There, we learned firsthand about the inconsistency in the quality of education between schools just ten miles apart from each other.”

Keep up the good work, Ms. Hillstrom!

You can nominate a cool teacher for this series by emailing me at eduwonkette (at) gmail (dot) com.

Introducing Cool Teachers You Should Know - Nominations Open!

We hear so much about "bad" teachers that it's easy to forget about the many superstars we have teaching in American public schools.

Since I started writing this blog, I've been profiling "cool people you should know" - cool people who do research on education. Beginning this week, I'll start profiling a "cool teacher you should know" every week- someone who colleagues, parents, or students recognize as a master teacher, and who adds something special to your school. (If I get lots of nominations, I'll profile teachers more frequently.)

So please circulate this post far and wide and help me identify some exceptionally cool teachers from around the country. And if someone young enough to have a myspace or facebook page could help me get this out to high school and college students who are still close to their educational experiences, I'd appreciate it.

Email me their name, grade level or subject, school, and location, as well a few tidbits about them - something about how they teach, what they're like as a colleague, especially great lessons, how they affected you, etc. Send me an email at which I can contact them (you can remain anonymous as the nominator if you wish). If you have a picture, send it along, too. If the teacher has a DonorsChoose profile, I'll link to that as well.

Send nominations to eduwonkette (at) gmail (dot) com.

PS - Also, check out teacher ken's post on the impacts of society's lack of respect for educators. He reminds us that saying thanks makes a difference:

All of us have had teachers. And even if we were too shy, or too stubborn, to express our thanks at the time, we can always drop a note or make a call, or if possible stop by and say hello, and thank those who made a difference for us. Sometimes we worry about the students who pass through our care, that we did not do enough, care enough, and it can help a teacher who is wondering whether to continue the struggle to hear of the differences s/he made. Sometimes that can be the one thing that keeps a teacher going for one more year.