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Local News

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Three enjoy golden moment

Findlay Inn & Conference Center -Downtown Findlay
By JOY BROWN

staff writer

Hancock County art, language arts and math teachers were named as Golden Apple recipients at Findlay Rotary Club's 18th annual awards lunch held Monday.

Van Buren art teacher Jane Vanden Eynden, Liberty-Benton Middle School language arts teacher Celeste Eirich and Cory-Rawson High School math teacher Chris Leuthold were chosen from nine semifinalists for their unique and effective teaching methods.

Along with the recognition, Rotary annually gives $2,500 to each winner.

Educators are nominated by various people, from students to coworkers, and semifinalists undergo a rigorous evaluation.

Rotarian Paul Sittason Stark said the elementary level selection committee was impressed with Vanden Eynden's inclusion of her summer experiences into lessons.

"Each year (Vanden Eynden) takes a vacation to a different part of the world" and includes her travels in lesson plans, said Stark. One year, she taught a section on Egypt. "A parent assumed class was really going to Cairo and offered to go as a chaperone," Stark said.

While teaching at Van Buren the past 28 years, Vanden Eynden also led the cosmetic planning and implementation of Van Buren's building addition, which features a castle theme.

"Jane has made this school a place children love to come to," Van Buren Elementary Principal Richard Lehman told the selection committee.

With 36 years of experience, Vanden Eynden, who is also an adjunct art professor at the University of Findlay and Bowling Green State University, said in a video interview she enjoys the "variety" her job offers.

"All (students) have different ideas and imaginations. You always have a surprise every time. Every day is new. Every day is different. It just makes for a wonderful way to spend your day," Vanden Eynden told the committee. "Each child is special and, because of this, has something special to offer to others."

On Monday, Vanden Eynden thanked her "mentors" when she accepted her award. "I hope that I can be that type of mentor and pay it forward," she said.

Eirich also knows about travel, Shirley Kostyo, a Liberty-Benton intervention specialist, told the Rotary selection committee.

She "is the ultimate tour guide who joins with her students and leads them on a journey in the land of learning. The great benefit is that her students only later realize the vast wealth of knowledge they have gained in the journey."

Eirich has held many teaching jobs over the past 24 years, from instructing the learning disabled to the gifted, but has taught English at Liberty-Benton Middle School since 2003.

In her interview, Eirich said teachers must "look at backgrounds" of students and recognize they may be "coming from families where circumstances aren't the best.

"You're always careful in the classroom about what you say. You just have to know the kids. You praise them the best you can to get them going. Sometimes it's just repeating something, sometimes it's guiding them more, or hitting your hand over their shoulder and saying 'you can do it,'" said Eirich.

"Things were lively and fast moving, with a lot of laughter and kidding," said Rotarian George King of one of Eirich's classes. "How else would you teach poetry to eighth grade boys?"

"It is through humor that mistakes are often the best teacher," Eirich wrote to the committee. "Students laugh at their mistakes and realize the silliness of their errors and correct them without inflicting harsh, degrading thoughts toward themselves or others. Throughout the day I model rapport, encouragement and humor."

King said Eirich increases communication by inviting students to have lunch with her on a rotating schedule.

On Monday, Eirich said students are taking state standardized tests this week, but she left them a note explaining why she wasn't there. The note told them "it's because of you that I am here (as a Golden Apple finalist) today. I am the teacher I am because of the students you are."

"It's a challenge to try to explain things," said Leuthold, also no stranger to humorous teaching, in his interview.

"I really like the challenge of thinking 'OK, where are they in their thinking right now and how can I move them forward.'"

Leuthold has taught math at Cory-Rawson since 1974 and said he likes "watching the students mature. They come in as goofy eighth graders and leave as adults," said Leuthold.

Tom Meyer, whose four children took Leuthold's classes, said his kids "loved the math-related stories that he told in class and the yearly humorous math-related class projects. One year they tested the advertised '2000 flushes' of a toilet product and sent statistical results to the manufacturer. Another year they calculated the size of the Longaberger Basket manufacturing building to be different from that stated in the brochure. The company changed their brochure."

Rotarian Rick Polder said Leuthold, who teaches seven classes a day, never uses the same tests each year, and prides himself on handing out grades for quizzes and tests the day after they're given.

"When a student leaves my classroom for the last time, I want him or her to have improved on being organized, budgeting time, following directions, recognizing the importance of good attendance, thinking logically, asking the right questions, being a little skeptical, being a problem solver, and getting from point A to point Z successfully. In the meantime, they can learn some mathematics along the way," Leuthold wrote to the selection committee.

"Teachers don't get recognized like this very often. We really do appreciate it," Leuthold said Monday. "I had many, many good teachers. We're all kind of a progression of all of them."

The six other Golden Apple semifinalists received $250 each. They were Mary Ellen Downing from St. Michael Elementary School, Laura Finney from Chamberlin Hill Elementary, Jeff Dean from Arlington Middle School, Teresa Lambert from Donnell Middle School, Douglas Conine from Arcadia High School and Patti Spiegel from Liberty-Benton High School.

Contact staff writer Joy Brown at:

419-427-8496

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