Six chosen as county's 2000 Teachers of the Year

By Lynn Hotaling

Nominees for Jackson County's Teacher of the Year

Lana Bryson

Marsha Cameron

Mary Sue Casey

Jennifer Dall

Christy Proffitt

Kathy Wooten

Six educators, one from each county school, were nominated last spring by their peers for the honor. Judges will bestow the countywide title based on teacher-compiled portfolios and interviews today (Thursday).

This year's individual school Teachers of the Year are Lana Bryson, Blue Ridge; Marsha Cameron, Cullowhee Valley; Mary Sue Casey, Smoky Mountain High; Jennifer Dall, Smokey Mountain Elementary; Christy Proffitt, Scotts Creek; and Kathy Wooten, Fairview.

A committee consisting of last year's individual school winners and several area education professionals will select this year's county winner, who will then move on to state competition. First Union Bank sponsors the annual award, and Peggy Wike, community schools and media director for Jackson County Schools, coordinates the competition.

Information about all six individual school winners, taken from the portfolios they prepared for the judges' consideration, follows.

Lana Bryson - Blue Ridge

Her decision to become a teacher was influenced by her family. Her mother, an avid reader, contributed to Bryson's love of reading, and her father, who was more mathematically inclined, taught her the multiplication tables.

Another influence was her history teacher at Sylva-Webster, Larry Crawford, who, Bryson said, "made history come alive."

Though she started college a business major, Bryson realized midway through her sophomore year that she wanted to be a history teacher and switched to an education course of study.

"I am happy in my teaching position and feel very thankful that I have the opportunity to work with students," Bryson said. "I appreciate the influence my family had on my education, the interest of teachers like Mr. Crawford and the continued support of the teachers and administrators whom I currently work with at Blue Ridge."

In summing up her educational philosophy, Bryson said she views teaching as "more than just a license and a pay check. Teaching is a part of who I am, not just a job I do."

Teaching is satisfying, she said, because it gives her "the sense of having an influence on the future."

Marsha Cameron - Cullowhee Valley

Like Bryson, Cameron credits her parents with fostering her early interest in a teaching career. She also lists positive school experiences - like being chosen a teacher's helper in sixth grade. As a teacher helper, Cameron was given the opportunity to work with first-grade students for an hour each day.

"I fell in love with the children, the magic of the classroom and the idea of becoming a teacher," Cameron said. "From that time on, I never wavered about what I would do with my life. Teaching children would be my career choice."

Cameron's teaching philosophy involves the belief that children are worthy people and deserve to be treated with respect.

"Children need to know that teachers take them seriously, respect them and care deeply about them as individuals," she said. "No matter what a child's background or circumstances, he or she should be treated with love and dignity. I have developed this type of nurturing environment in my classroom."

Mary Sue Casey - Smoky Mountain High

Casey attributes her decision to become a teacher to the good teachers she had in elementary school and to her math teacher at Sylva-Webster, Rebecca Evans.

"When I began thinking about career choices, I remembered the wonderful role models I had admired through the years," Casey said. "They gave themselves to the students every day and made their students feel important and successful."

She turned to mathematics as a field, she said, because it is a subject many students dread. "I felt that being a high school math teacher would give me an opportunity to make students feel important and successful," she said.

Her philosophy of teaching is centered around the idea that teachers should equip students with the decision-making skills they'll need to become responsible citizens.

Teaching geometry meshes well with Casey's goal of preparing students for life because of the reasoning skills necessary for understanding its principles.

"It is indeed a challenge to take the many different perspectives (of the students) and point them all in the same direction," Casey said. "But that is the beauty of geometry - everybody's solution does not have to be obtained in the same process. Each student must equip himself with the necessary tools to make logical decisions. That's the real challenge."

Jennifer Dall - Smokey Mountain Elementary

Her decision to become a teacher was not really a conscious one, she said. "In retrospect, I never 'decided' to become a teacher. It was something I had always done."

Dall taught horseback riding lessons while in high school. During college, she began to take lessons in Scottish country dance and then found herself teaching the steps to beginners a year later.

"Teaching has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, and it has become one of my greatest pleasures to truly enjoy and look forward to going to work," Dall said.

Dall's philosophy of teaching art involves fostering students' ability to work diligently and creatively. "An art class should be the place where the student has a chance to unwind and do a different kind of thinking," she said.

A goal she has for her students is for them to be able to look at an artwork and see both the beauty it possesses as well as the personal effort that went into its creation.

"Being able to recognize others' talents and efforts is a quality that everyone in any field should have," Dall said.

Christy Proffitt - Scotts Creek

Proffitt said her positive experiences while a student, combined with her own outstanding teachers, influenced her decision to become a teacher. She realized she had chosen correctly when she experienced what she described as the "joy of teaching."

"I found an excitement in standing before a class sharing knowledge that they had yet to discover," Proffitt said. "It is also a tremendous satisfaction when students learn the subject or master the task set before them. There is a special feeling shared between student and teacher when learning has taken place." Proffitt's teaching philosophy revolves around the concept of a teacher as a lifelong learner.

"A teacher who is a lifelong learner sees the importance of keeping up to date on new topics and will be better equipped to prepare the students for the consistently developing and progressing future," Proffitt said. "I realize the importance of this job, and the expectations I set for myself and my students will have a great impact on the entire educational process."

Kathy Wooten - Fairview

She was led to a teaching career, she said, by parents who encouraged her, by her love of learning and by her love of children.

Among the first WCU graduates to become certified to teach kindergarten, Wooten said she realized early in her career the importance of the solid foundation that kindergarten could provide children.

"I personally felt called to make kindergarten a 'garden for children to grow in,'" she said.

In summing up her teaching philosophy, Wooten said she believes home and school have to work together - that educators have to involve parents in the classroom. "That's pretty easy in kindergarten," Wooten said. "I build relationships with my parents and communicate with them to find out what they like to do."

Parents are often shy about telling her of their skills, Wooten said, but she's found that most are willing to help out. "If you get them into the classroom once, it's easy to get them to come back."

Her parent involvement program has been such a success through the years that parents come back even after their kids have moved on to other teachers.

"I'm not shy about asking people to repeat a successful project with a new crop of students," Wooten said. "When you find somebody who enjoys what you're doing, you latch onto them."

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