Teachers of the Year show what the profession offers

Five CTA members are being honored as California's Teachers of the Year for 2005:

Eric Burrows, a member of the Santa Barbara Teachers Association, teaches advanced placement U.S. and European history at San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara.

Kim Labinger, a member of the Glendale Teachers Association, teaches fourth grade at Thomas A. Edison Elementary School in Glendale.

Alan Siegel, a member of the Konocti Teachers Association, teaches history, civics and economics at the W.C. Carle Continuation High School in Lake County.

Ray Williams, a member of the Association of Cypress Teachers, teaches sixth grade at Steve Luther Elementary School in Orange County.

Stanley Murphy, a member of the San Diego Education Association, teaches teaches social studies at San Diego High School.

Murphy will represent California in the National Teacher of the Year competition.

The five people chosen each year symbolize the profession's contributions to quality education and focus public attention on the noteworthy accomplishments of teachers, according to California's State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

Eric Burrows earned a bachelor's degree in history with distinction from Stanford University, a master's degree in public policy analysis at Claremont Graduate School, a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley and his teaching credential from Holy Names College.

While he loved his job with the Alameda County District Attorney's office, the call to invest in youth tugged at him. Going to college at night, he eventually earned a teaching credential and switched careers. To this day, he calls teaching "intensely personal, demanding, exciting, and rewarding."

From the minute students walk into his advanced placement American and European history classes, he tells them "Welcome to college," hinting that they will work harder and learn more than they may ever have before.

He believes students must think in order to learn and must know the facts behind the nation's past in order to understand it. On a typical day, he asks them to explore, for example, "what it was like to be a Japanese-American in Manzanar or an African American caught in a race riot in Detroit."

At first, students engage in learning in conjunction with tests, but Burrows' goal is to have their interests drive them beyond that level. He encourages reluctant learners by challenging them, getting some success, then following with more challenges and more successes. Each student is given the opportunity to shine and to demonstrate "true, embedded knowledge."

Burrows coaches the San Marcos Mock Trial Team and works with the debate club and the Junior Statesmen of America. He's also worked to bring music and arts education to local schools. According to one of his students, he coaches mock trial like it's a sport, complete with practices, scrimmages and real competitions. "He made sure we were all ready. We were drilled constantly [in] knowledge of the law, oratory skills, rhetoric, and quick thinking."

But it was at the tryouts for the mock trial team where the student would see Burrows' compassion and intensity. "It ripped his heart out every time he had to deny a young adult such a wonderful opportunity."

Kim Labinger , who serves as an Academic Excellence demonstration mentor teacher and a consultant/presenter for the UCLA Writing Project, says she grew up in the shadow of greatness — "Mahatma Gandhi and his philosophy of non-violence, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and his poetry that transcends all faiths, and Mother Teresa whose Home for the Dying and Destitute stood on the street where I lived in Calcutta."

As a child, she and her sister made up plays for leprosy patients and turned their bookshelves into a library for neighborhood children.

It was only natural that, as an adult, she would seek service-oriented work. Teaching, she says, embodies "all that I had grown to believe in."

Labinger, who holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Pomona College and her master's degree and credential from UCLA, has contributed to or authored numerous publications, videodisc study guides, lesson plan designs and literary works for Disney Educational Productions.

A student of Indian classical music, she believes "the arts have the power to transcend social, cultural and economic barriers, and can transform the way one person or one culture perceives and interacts with another." The dwindling availability of arts education programs is leading to the loss of "a common language of expression."

"Education must involve teaching and learning more than mere facts. It must include a celebration of humanity, rooted in the past, expressed in the language of the present, and with the ability to imagine the future."

She sees her classroom as a place "where new songs are sung, thoughts take root, exploration is invited and disagreements are discussed. Teachers are the guardians of growth, sustenance and renewal. Our children need to sing their songs and paint their pictures in order to know where they came from."

Alan Siegel is the first teacher from an Alternative Schools Accountability Model (ASAM) continuation high school to win a Teacher of the Year award.

"Helping large numbers of students out of disenfranchised lives, to see that they can be successful and get out of generational poverty, is what I strive for," says Siegel, who earned bachelor's degrees in psychology from Michigan State University and in history from San Francisco State.

When students walk into his class, they find a topic on the board that ties a current issue to the academic content they are studying. They write their thoughts and opinions and discuss the results.

"I have boiled my philosophy down to two concepts," says Siegel. "The first is public versus private. When a student curses, instead of just being another adult who yells at him, I frame discussions in the public versus private mode." He would tell the student, "I am not interested in your private conversations with friends; but when you scream across the quad, you make it public and therefore everyone's business."

"The second concept is liberty versus safety. I came up with this as a way to make the Constitution come alive [for students]. 'While you have the liberty of yelling across the quad, don't others have the right to be safe from your diatribes?'"

Community service is something Siegel believes in strongly. "My first obstacle is getting students to see that community service is not something you get after the police bust you. Once we pass this understanding, students who have never known a sense of community seem to relish the role."

One student-based enterprise involves making plaques, key chains, mouse pads and T-shirts using professional computer programs. Students design, lay out, print, cut metal and paste up products. The business has led to a partnership with a local concert venue whereby Siegel trains students to run professional video cameras during live music shows.

Siegel believes teachers need to always be assessing and reassessing lessons to make sure that students understand the material. "They have to be willing to rework material, change modalities, and try new strategies."

"A talented teacher who exposed me to hands-on engaging curriculum said you can never have too many arrows in your quiver," says Siegel. "One arrow, no matter how good, will get boring and lose your students."

He believes a teacher who has mastered the art of lesson planning can teach anything. "Experienced teachers need to take the time to help newer teachers to plan and execute successful curriculum and discipline policies," says Siegel, who has mentored six new teachers over the last six years.

Ray Williams earned his bachelor's degree in biological sciences and math from McMurray College and his master's degree in education systems management from Chapman College.

When Williams was young, college was a foreign concept. But when an influential teacher died in a car accident, his encouragement to attend college stayed in Williams' head. Today, after 38 years as a teacher, Williams still loves his job. Two of his elementary school students are now his fellow teachers, both of whom credit him with influencing their decision to teach.

Discipline, structure and communication are what Williams considers keys to classroom success. He believes each child is a unique and special person for whom both teacher and student need to work hard. He insists that students accept personal responsibility for their learning experiences.

As early as possible in the school year, Williams schedules a goal-setting meeting with the parent and the child. The purpose is to have the child see the teacher and parent working together as a team.

Williams has created classroom management forms and a behavior management system that have been adopted by his peers. Principals at other schools have contacted him to mentor their teachers.

He believes that schooling needs to be curriculum-driven, not test-driven. "After testing in April or early May," he says, "students and parents may act as if school is over. They, at times, do not push for the same excellence as before the testing, even though we still have over a month left."

Testing students at the beginning of each school year would give teachers a better picture of present strengths and weaknesses. "We would have the rest of the year to teach with students and parents focused on meeting goals."