Beatrice Kramer Volkman -- 1991 Alabama Teacher of the Year
A teacher for 18 years she has for the past five years been a Kindergarten through 5th grade Special Education teacher in Semmes, AL. In the fall of 1990 she became the Arts Facilitator for two newly formed magnet schools for the creative and performing arts in Mobile, AL. She earned her Bachelor of Science from Drake University and a Masters of Education, Learning Disabilities from the University of South Alabama. In addition she holds Alabama certification as a K-6 principal. Early in her career Volkman found herself drawn to children who were having difficulties in school--those whose "reputations went before them". She believed that the curriculum could be transformed to meet these students where they were--learning could become relevant to their needs. She began working with students after school and soon found herself tutoring students of all ages. As a teacher of learning disabled students, she reaches her students through activities based on tactile and kinesthetic experiences. "I am interested in education beyond the four walls of my classroom" she says, "when teaching is restricted to textbooks and lectures, little is learned." Her projects include full length plays presented by her students and the development of reading incentive programs to encourage daily student reading such as Dusk-to-Dawn Read-a-thons, story telling sessions, and school visits by authors. Volkman has designed and conducted teacher training and staff development on strategies for working with the learning disabled and building their self-esteem.
Shirley A. Rau -- 1991 Idaho Teacher of the Year
Shirley Rau teaches senior English at Nampa High School in Nampa, ID. Rau is a 1978 graduate of Idaho State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education, and the Middlebury College Bread Loaf School of English, where she earned a Master of Liberal Arts in 1985. "I share the power of language with my students" says Rau. "My greatest contributions to education have been in my classroom, helping my students find a voice in silence." She is a reflective practitioner and a skilled teacher-researcher. "My classroom is a community of readers, writers and learners--creators, questioners and thinkers." She has presented workshops on learning styles, cooperative learning, and women and writing among others, in her state and at national conferences. As the English department head she is a teacher-advocate-- committed to helping teachers teach. Rau is also active as a cheerleading coach and was named Cheerleading Coach of the Year in 1989 by the International Cheerleading Foundation. The Nampa High cheerleaders are two time national champions.
Shirley A. Hopkinson -- 1991 District of Columbia Teacher of the Year
A teacher for 27 years, for the last five she has been a pre-kindergarten teacher at Brightwood Elementary School. A native of Guyana, South America, she completed her undergraduate work at the University of Guyana. She holds a Masters and a PhD. in Early Childhood Education from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. It is her view that teaching provides the ultimate experience for one human being to help another to become human. She states: "Teaching is the most caring job one could perform. I never stop positively influencing learning-teaching environments." Hopkinson has developed and implemented PROJECT C.A.P.A.B.L.E. (Children and Parents are Becoming Learning Empowered). This program provides that crucial but so often missing link in education success: the effective involvement of children's first teachers, their parents, in the on-going development of the child. Through Project CAPABLE parents learn to help children control their own success. She has also designed and instituted a program to meet the needs of children born to drug abusing parents and as part of that program conducts workshops for principals on techniques for teaching students of drug abusing parents. "I educate, advocate, participate and agitate on behalf of the development of a new vision of education. A vision that presents education as a medium of relevance to today's child."
Rae E. McKee -- 1991 West Virginia Teacher of the Year
McKee teaches reading at Slanesville Elementary School in Slanesville, WV. She began her career 11 years ago after graduating from Shepherd College, Shepherdstown, WV, with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education. In 1983 she received a Master of Arts in Clinical Reading and is working towards a Masters in Educational Supervision at West Virginia University, Morgantown. She authored and implemented a study skills and content reading curriculum now used throughout her county's schools. Rae is a mentor teacher and active in presenting inservice and staff development programs on various reading and study skills topics. Born in Appalachia, she is a fifth generation teacher. Through the example of her father, an elementary school teacher and administrator, she learned what it meant to be not just a teacher--but an educator. Although she had been after graduation accepted to law school at William and Mary she never went. Instead she chose to become a teacher and to return to the mountains of her youth in order to give back some of what she had received. "I chose to live and teach in rural West Virginia because it offers my chidlren the best possible set of values and life choices." Throughout her teaching career she has spoken to civic and community organizations urging that the school cannot be the only agent responsible for developing the skills of young people--the community at large must seek to educate.
