THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 29, 1994 TAG: 9407290523
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
AS A KID, he'd dismantle a radio, a toy car or just about anything else to find out what made it work.
Like the time he took apart the toaster. That experiment, however, earned him a tongue-lashing from his parents because he couldn't figure out how to put it back together.
John Monroe, a technology education teacher at Lakeland High School, has always liked to tinker. At 62, he still gets a kick out of exploring the twists and turns of technology.
Meanwhile, his peers still get a kick out of his work with students. Monroe this year was voted Virginia's Technology Education Teacher of the Year by the state's technology education association. The award recognizes stellar performance in the classroom and dedication to the field.
It is a feather in the cap of a rural school district that is trying to expose more of its students to all types of technology.
And it's the latest in a long series of honors Monroe has earned in recent years for helping students pair math and science skills with hands-on building projects.
``When you can learn to understand how things work and what makes them work the way they do, then you can learn to have more power over things in your environment,'' Monroe said. ``That's what I try to get my students to understand. Knowing the inner workings of things can help you solve problems in your daily living.''
Monroe is president-elect of the 8,700-member International Technology Education Association in Reston. This latest honor is the highest the state association bestows.
``I just said, `Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus,' '' Monroe said with a smile, explaining that he had been nominated for the award several times before. ``Finally having it makes me even more sure that I'm definitely doing the right things.''
The awards keep coming, Monroe said, because he keeps looking for ways to grow.
But nudge him a little, and he'll bare his secret to success:
``I'm a very dynamic leader and I have a certain charisma,'' he said, showing some of his summer reading material - books with titles such as ``Positioning the Best for Your Mind - How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace.''
A former student recalled a teacher who was always on top of his game.
``I guess he was like any other teacher,'' said Cornelius Wright, now a Norfolk State University sophomore. ``But what I remember most is how he would let you do your thing without getting in your way. He knows what he's talking about, too. He's not like a lot of teachers who fake it.''
Monroe - a 33-year district veteran whose smooth skin and overall pep belie his age - is in many ways still the traditional ``shop teacher'' of years past.
Students in his production classes, for example, build model cars from wood as students have done for decades. And his production ``lab'' is one of those big rooms filled with saws, work stations and everyday tools in what used to be called industrial arts classes.
But Monroe is quick to point out that he has indeed changed with the times. He urges students to think more about the chemistry, mathematical formulas and scientific theories behind a task. And he tries harder to relate their assignments to the real world.
This fall, for instance, Monroe plans to take a handful of students to York County to study the current shape of the Coleman Bridge. The bridge soon will be widened to more than twice its size.
``Some sort of technology is in everything we do,'' Monroe said. ``We're hurting our children and our competitive edge in the world if we don't move away from the negative stigma that still lingers over technology education.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
John Monroe, at Lakeland High School in Suffolk, was voted
Virginia's Technology Education Teacher of the Year by a statewide
group of educators in the field. He is shown with a student's
project depicting a space habitat.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE
by CNB