Innovation is the way of the future.
Montezuma-Cortez High School teachers Mandi Norris and Sharon Englehart would agree with that statement.
Norris, a new 10th and 12th grade English teacher, and Englehart, a veteran photography, Native Hands/Native Voices, and sculpture/ceramics teacher, both use innovative methods in their classrooms.
Englehart believes so strongly in the methodology that she founded her own class six years ago: Native Hands/Native Voices. Specifically, the class helps Native American students who are struggling with reading and writing by using art as a doorway to other fields of learning., including Ute and Navajo history, poetry, storytelling, and traditional arts and crafts.
Native American students tend to be visual learners, Englehart explained. The first thing she has them do is draw a sketch of their hand and then name their ancestors on each finger until the hand is complete. “It gives kids a chance to expand their cultural identity and hopefully increase their basic skills too,” she said.
“We get (Native American) kids from the reservation and some town kids.” She explained that they deal with historical and contemporary issues.
“I really have to take time to learn as much about them as possible because that provides (them) a safe environment to be able to grow and learn.”
Englehart will use a traditional lecture format about 30 percent of the time, particularly when introducing new material.
She incorporates a darkroom into her photography classes, along with Adobe PhotoShop.
“Using a darkroom is the best way to learn structure and tonal value and composition,” she said. “It’s great to be able to turn right around and apply it in PhotoShop.”
Norris, who moved to Colorado recently from Lynchburg, Va., has one year of teaching under her belt.
She uses technology, blogs, flip videos, Powerpoint and other tools to keep her students’ interest.
“Last year (at Staunton River Middle School) my students learned more and retained more from doing something,” she said. “I may lecture for 5 to 10 minutes. I (then) break them off into small groups. They’re learning, They’re actively engaged. They play games.”
Norris will have her students find verbs in a newspaper, for example. She will ask students to name their favorite song, and tell what it means to them as a way of teaching them about themes.
Nearly 75 percent of the students at the rural school where she previously taught lived in poverty, Norris said. She also did her student teaching in Heights High School in Wichita, Kan., a “very large school in a rough part of town.” She believes these served as good preparation for Montezuma Cortez High School.
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?
Englehart is entering her 30th year teaching locally. She has learned that “teaching is the best profession on earth because it has remained a challenge. It’s fun. Students are our greatest asset. They are our potential as a society.”
Norris, a Kansas State graduate, has learned that working with parents is a great help. Students “can really pick up on who cares and who doesn’t,” she said.
Norris has high expectations for her students. She expects them to give 100 percent and know why they are doing it.
“They will meet me where I want them to meet me,” she said, noting her students had a 94 percent pass rate on the state test last year.
One doesn’t become CEO of a company without learning how to spell and speak correctly, she said.
LOOKING FORWARD
Norris is excited about teaching high school after one year at a middle school. She will also coach “C” level volleyball, and expects the community to support the students and the school.
Englehart is a fifth-generation teacher. Her great-great grandmother taught Bible and traditional school subjects in a one-room schoolhouse in Missouri. Her mother’s family settled in Arriola in the 1930s. Her dad was an art professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango for 32 years.
“I don’t have any interest in retiring,” she said.
