Teacher Feature
Brooke Wilson, 5th Grade Teacher, Northridge Elementary School
Year after year Brooke Wilson, 5th grade teacher at Northridge Elementary, celebrates outstanding test scores with her students. Last year, 100 percent of her students passed state reading tests, 100 percent passed math, 94 percent passed science and 94 percent passed social studies. Below, Wilson describes the personal, positive approach she has in the classroom.
All children are important. I want each child to feel successful at the end of every day. I want them to feel successful before the holiday break and at the end of the year. At the end of each day as students leave our classroom, I ask them to give me a high five, handshake or hug. Most of them give hugs. I am their mother during the day. I'm also a friend, counselor and teacher. I know for some, the hug they get at the end of school may be the only hug they get that day.
I take time to listen to my students. I eat lunch with them if they want. I take time to get to know each child. Sometimes they want to talk, and I've found that I can learn a lot when we eat together. I also attend their football and baseball games, watch them cheer and go to their band concerts.
The teams within my class work for points as a group. We have different goals, and they accumulate points to win prizes. They start off winning smaller prizes such as lunch with me in my room, and the group can work up to going to dinner or a movie with their parents' consent.
I have very high expectations for my students. I tell them everyone will succeed in my class, and no one will fail.
On a frequent basis, I assess whether students are still learning a skill or if they have mastered it. For students who need further assistance or more teaching in a certain area, we break up into small groups and one teacher reteaches those skills. Those students who have mastered the skills do enrichment activities that go with the original lesson.
Sometimes, I have the students who have mastered a skill be peer tutors. They get up in front of the classroom and teach the other students. The peer tutors learn to speak in front of the class and get to work one-on-one with students at recess. They love it!
District benchmark tests given every nine weeks also help me stay up with how each child is doing. Results that come back from these tests tell us which students have mastered specific concepts and which students are struggling with them. Benchmark tests also help us familiarize students with the format of state tests and the testing environment. By the time they take state tests in the spring, the students have done practice tests and they are not nervous.
One of the best things about being a teacher is when you teach a new subject area and you look at the students and the light bulb goes on. It is especially rewarding when a child is struggling and he or she says, “I get it!”
In my own classroom on Parent Night, I always start off by saying, “We're a team.” Teachers and parents have to work together and stay on top of the child's school experience. I share with parents that our main focus is on their child. If a child is struggling, I'll make a call to the parent or send home an extra assignment.
There are many things parents can do to help their children be successful in school. One of the most important things is making sure their child gets a good night sleep. We welcome parents in the classroom and invite them to be involved. They can be a tutor by listening to a child read or helping them with their math facts or they can help by making copies of work for the classroom. I am a working mom, and I find ways to help my children at home since I cannot be in their classrooms. Examples of some of the things I do with my own children is take time to read, practice math facts in the car on the way to soccer practices, show them how a checkbook is balanced and include them in activities such as measuring the size of rooms in a house we are building.
I attended Harvest Hills Elementary the first year it opened, and I was in the first class my favorite teacher of all time ever taught. It was my 1st-grade year and her first year of teaching. Her name is Debbie Eastman, and she is still a teacher at Harvest Hills. She inspired me to be a teacher at that young age. My mom tells me I would come home after school and talk and teach like Mrs. Eastman. To this day, I have stayed in touch with her. She attended my wedding, showers and other special occasions.
I want to be a positive role model for my students. I wonder if I have made an impact upon children's lives, and then I'll get a call from a former parent whose child is now in college thanking me for being the child's teacher. My former students are now graduating from high school. I have gone to four of their high school graduations, and I tell my students I will attend every one of their graduations.
I have another great group of kids this year. I am confident that we are going to have another great year.