THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506030077
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 179 lines
LIKE GREAT ATHLETES and artists, great teachers make their jobs look easy.
Carolyn Williams, Suffolk's Teacher of the Year, is one of those.
The school day is about 30 minutes old and Williams is explaining compound words to her class at Elephant's Fork Elementary School. With a delivery that makes everything sound exciting and the kind of exact pronunciation usually reserved for How-to records, she eases her points into the minds of eager first-graders.
Her style is part Mary Poppins, part Mom. She's quick to point out that she's a firm teacher. But, without assuming the role of either bully or infallible genius, she creates an environment where it's OK to err - as long as one never stops trying.
``I love first grade because I'm starting them out . . . You can see a lot of (academic) growth,'' she said one recent afternoon. ``My basic philosophy is just to try to teach them those basic skills they'll need to succeed later on.
``. . . You just try to do the best job you can in teaching them, and hope that you say or do something that will touch them and make them want to grow up to succeed.''
The 25-year veteran is from rural Halifax County. Her parents farmed. Her mother was the lady people called on for help when they found themselves in a jam; and she's still a neighborhood matriarch.
As a girl, Williams attended a four-room school with first- through seventh-grades. Her first-grade teacher inspired her to enter the profession.
``Everything she did was just perfect,'' she recalled. ``Everything was fun, but she always had control of the class. She was very nurturing, and she knew how to motivate children.''
Williams, a 49-year-old mother of three, says her ``basic love'' of children keeps the job fulfilling.
After she earned a master's degree in education this spring, some colleagues asked her whether she planned to shoot for an administrative job. That was an easy question. She said she couldn't imagine herself in a position where the connection to kids would be less direct.
``I like teaching them. . . . I'll probably be one of those who comes back to `sub' until I can't walk anymore.''
She considers herself one of the school's ``regular'' teachers, someone who's no more ``outstanding than anybody else.'' But co-workers, parents and students say she's anything but garden-variety.
In addition to her classroom duties, she's the new vice president of the Education Association of Suffolk and an after-school tutor.
``Mrs. Williams is a total package,'' Principal Janice Holland said. ``She is instructionally sound; a great classroom manager; always willing to go the extra mile; and the consummate professional.''
Renee Winslow, a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher at the school, still remembers her days as one of Williams' students.
``She was patient and caring. I just loved her,'' Winslow said. ``She keeps the children interested by always having fun things for them to do, different activities to go along with the lessons. She's a good role model.''
Suzzette Esponda and her family moved to Suffolk from Virginia Beach about a year ago. She wasn't sure whether her 7-year-old daughter, Jaclyn, would quickly embrace a new school. Now, she said, Jaclyn can't stop talking about her teacher.
``Mrs. Williams has made my child feel welcome,'' Esponda said. ``She just has this warmth and kindness about her, a certain selflessness. And she's very accessible. She sent a letter home with her home telephone number on it. She said parents could call her about anything. You rarely see that in teachers these days.''
A key part of her strategy: Trying to see things from the kids' perspective. ``I really try to put things on their level and include some of their ideas and interests in lessons,'' Williams said. ``I guess I've been teaching first-grade so long, maybe I even think like a first-grader!''
In her, students sense a kindred spirit. ``She's really nice to us and she likes to have fun,'' said Suquana Riddick, 7. MEMO: INFOLINE
Who was your favorite teacher?
All of us remembers that one special teacher - the one who took such
personal interest in us, the one who convinced us that no challenge was
insurmountable, the one who seemed as happy as we were when good things
happened to us.
You know the kind. When you think of certain things, the teacher's
name - and often a mental vision of why the teacher is your favorite -
comes to mind.
We'd like to hear your tales of your best teachers.
Dial 640-5555
Touch 7878 and share your story.
ILLUSTRATION: ON THE COVER
[Color Photo]
A+ TEACHER
Suffolk Teacher of the Year Carolyn Williams works in her
first-grade classroom at Elephant's Fork Elementary.
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Carolyn Williams lines up her first-graders at Elephant's Fork
Elementary School to go to art class.
``You just try to do the best job you can . . . and hope that you
say or do something that will touch them,'' says Carolyn Williams.
AT A GLANCE
Who: First-grade teacher Carolyn Williams, Elephant's Fork
Elementary
What: Suffolk Teacher of the Year
Experience: 25 year veteran
Family: Three children, two of whom now attend Suffolk public
schools; married to Isaac Williams, Nansemond River High School's
guidance department director
CITY'S TOP TEACHERS
EACH Suffolk school - 10 elementary, three middle and two high
- selected a ``Teacher of the Year.''
Those top educators then completed a portfolio that was submitted
to a panel of six judges. They included teachers, a School Board
administrator and last year's Teacher of the Year.
The panel then selected the city's top teacher. These teachers
represented their individual schools:
Booker T. Washington Elementary School
Priscilla H. Beamon
Fifth grade
Driver Elementary School
Kathy R. Murphy
Second grade
Florence Bowser Elementary School
Carol A. ``CoCo'' Cary
Fifth grade
Kilby Shores Elementary School
Arnette Cofield Streat
Students with learning disabilities
Mount Zion Elementary School
Judith J. Walsh
Art, preschool through fifth grade
Nansemond Parkway Elementary School
Linda J. Adams
First grade
Oakland Elementary School
Conjo V. Whitney
Kindergarten
Robertson Elementary School
Julie Anne Shea
Second grade
Southwestern Elementary School
Amy M. Espinosa
Reading, first through fifth grades
Forest Glen Middle School
Patricia C. Forrester
Eighth grade language arts
John F. Kennedy Middle School
Ann Calhoun
Sixth grade
John Yeates Middle School
Linda B. Dohey
Sixth grade reading, language and social science
Lakeland High School
Phyllis Lynn Sharpe
Ninth through 12th grade math and physics
Nansemond River High School
Phyllis C. Byrum
Ninth through 12th grade social studies
by CNB