THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994 TAG: 9406090185
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 24 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940610 LENGTH: Long
Carla Celata, who won the 1993 title while a teacher at Salem Middle, is now an assistant principal at Kemps Landing. Les Fortune, who earned the 1994 honor, is a reading teacher there.
{REST} And the 1995 citywide Teacher of the Year, Linda R. Clarke, has taught math at Kemps Landing for seven years.
Clarke, a 43-year-old mother of two, competed against 79 other applicants - teachers of the year from all the city's regular and alternative schools - for the honor.
Perhaps it's her talent for transforming even the most hated and feared of all school subjects, math, that swayed committee members to put aside their hesitancy at selecting two teachers of the year in a row from the same school.
Or perhaps it is her creativity and her concern for others, like the recent contest she concocted in which students vied to see who could donate the most money to a scholarship fund in honor of Principal John H. Sutherland Jr.'s late son. In the process, they reinforced their addition and subtraction skills and learned about positive and negative integers.
Or maybe it's the way she combs the neighborhood, convincing businesses to donate prizes and certificates so that every child in the school can be recognized for something, whether it's top honors or just bringing a failing grade up to a C or D.
``She teaches because it's a love,'' said Cher L. Sanderlin, whose 12-year-old daughter Lauren M. Huesman is in one of Clarke's seventh-grade math classes. ``She teaches from the heart and soul.''
Clarke is like a firecracker in the classroom. Not a minute is wasted.
The main lesson for a recent day was graphs, and how to plot lines on them. She related the lesson to real life, joking with the students that her checkbook balance is ``in the land of the negatives.''
When students' eyes began to glaze over with that I'll-never-use-this-again look, she asked, ``What would you need this for? What would you use a graph for?''
``Wall Street?'' came one tentative reply.
``Good answer,'' she said.
Between classes, she's out in the hallway, hustling kids into the room so she can get started on time. The minutes at the beginning of the bell, so often lost on administrative details, are filled with math-related activities in Clarke's classes.
While some kids turned in extra-credit pictures they drew on graph paper, a practice exercise for plotting points on graphs (the winners of the drawing contest will get a Taco Bell lunch, compliments of Clarke), others used calculators to see how much each class period raised for the Sutherland scholarship fund.
The total was $586 and some change. For their diligence, all 110 of Clarke's students got treated to a McDonald's breakfast last week. Clarke had to convince the restaurant to cut the school a break so she could afford to give each child juice and a muffin for free.
She had promised McDonald's to only the top money-collecting classes, but she changed her mind. ``After all that everybody did to raise this money, I could not leave anybody back,'' she said.
Parents and students say it is such gestures that make Clarke one of their favorite teachers of all time.
``She does not put pressure on the children,'' said Rene H. Childers, Kemps Landing PTA president, whose two children had Clarke for math. ``She makes the environment so relaxed that even though the kids are under pressure, even though they are expected to learn different concepts, she makes it easy for them to do it.''
``Anytime your child likes to go to math class, that's enough for a parent,'' said Gail Y. Nance, whose 13-year-old daughter Tiffany Cutler is one of Clarke's students. ``I mean, my daughter says math is her favorite class, and it's honors math.''
Thirteen-year-old Suzanne E. Bosio, one of Clarke's students, used to struggle in math. When report cards came home, it would be the one B that upset her straight-A average.
With Clarke, she's no longer so frustrated.
``She takes time to explain things when you don't understand,'' Suzanne said. ``She tells stories about things that relate to math. She uses drawings.''
Math-related artwork crowds the walls and chalkboards in Clarke's room. Among the controlled clutter hang motivational slogans, such as, ``Your `I will' is more important than your IQ,'' and, ``Never settle for less than your best.''
Clarke, born and raised in a predominantly Italian Catholic suburb of Pittsburgh, grew up knowing she wanted to be a teacher.
``It's such an opportunity to make a difference,'' she said, her Pennsylvania accent still audible. ``You're in touch with so many children every day . . . they all have this spark of life. And I knew this job would never be boring. It would always be something different.''
She was recruited out of college to teach in Virginia Beach, a place she thought would be all fun and sun. Her first job was at Trantwood Elementary.
All together, she's been teaching for 15 years, with a seven-year break in between to raise her twins. She's never felt burned out.
``This is definitely a job you have to do because you want to,'' she said. ``This is not a job you can fake. The kids know it right away.''
Still, she's noticed that teaching has become more challenging over the years.
``I see a lot more children that have an extended hand,'' she said. ``They come to us, I think, needing more than just an academic playground. They need support. They need encouragement. They need accolades.''
That about sums up her philosophy of education.
``The way to get these kids motivated, to keep them motivated, to keep hope alive, is to recognize as many positives as we can, and keep recognizing them and keep recognizing them. That's the only way we're going to succeed.''
Clarke now will compete with teachers of the year from other cities and counties for the statewide title.
Along with her two predecessors and the rest of the staff, she'll move to the new Larkspur Middle School when it opens this fall and Kemps Landing closes.
Principal Sutherland expects Clarke not to be the last among his staff to achieve the city's top teaching honor.
``I tell you, everyone on the staff here could be a teacher of the year. They're great. It's just a matter of getting them in, one at a time, year after year. They're all geniuses.''
by CNB