In observance of National Teacher Appreciation Week, swark.today is featuring profiles of area teachers on each day of the business week.
In the Nevada County Schools complex in Rosston, the hallway of the high school wing, home of the Blue Jays, displays large pictures of each graduating class over the school’s history.
In the picture of the very first graduating class, is Teresa Blake, current teacher of sixth grade math and science. A little farther down the hall is the picture of the class of 2011, in which her son Tre appears. So you could say Blake’s Blue Jay colors run deep. “We’re Blue Jays to the heart,” she said.
That accounts for how glad she was to be hired there. “Of all the school districts, just the opportunity to come back to home, the school and the community, I was elated.” She has taught at her home school for nine years out of her ten-year career as an educator, which began in Sparkman.
But it’s Nevada’s colors Blake is wearing on the day of our interview, as she explains her belief in the status of teachers as life-long learners who guide their students by setting up experiences they would enjoy in which they learn for themselves. “When you give them a say in their learning, that’s when you see them flourish, especially with hands-on. When you do things like that, they’re going to do the rest,” she said.
In keeping with the idea that students learn best when they’re doing things, rather than having ideas and information told to them from a teacher at a podium, she makes time for what is called peer tutoring. “Students sometimes learn better from each other. Often, I divide them into groups of four, or two, they come back and tell me, ‘I get it now.’”
Peer tutoring also provides students with experiences they will draw from when they enter their careers. “They’re learning not only collaborative skills, but communication skills, and they’re growing and learning together and that’s what it’s all about.”
Another skill that living in our culture increasingly requires is critical thinking, which Blake works to impart in her math and science classes during discussion time. “My kids get tired of me saying, ‘Explain your reasoning.’ I don’t want a simple yes or no answer,” she said.
She wants students to not only be able to explain their reasoning to a teacher, but to be able to check their reasoning after they’ve drawn their conclusions. This self-correcting mechanism, Blake said, is not only a characteristic of good science but a necessity for students to advance in their educations. “When they’re self-reflecting, they get to see their strengths and weaknesses. When you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, you can focus on those areas. If you’re not aware of your weaknesses, you can get left behind,” Blake said.
One of those weaknesses can be a lack of attention to where information comes from: “When we do research, I always tell them make sure it’s from a credible site and source. In science, it needs to be from a science website, not just what somebody said.”
Her assignments are developed from a sense of what students are already curious about, but also about what they are seeing in their everyday lives in a small, rural community surrounded by natural resources but also with access to the world through media. “We’ll do activities related to water pollution. I tell them go home and watch the news and find something to relate to the class. Check the doorknobs for germs.” Most recently, she had groups of her students construct models of animal/plant cells. In the past she has had them gather leaves from outdoors to determine what kinds of plants students live around.
So that students will not be dismissed in the future as too provincial, Blake takes advantage of her students each having Chromebooks so that they can gain a connection to the rest of the world. “They’re going to be competing,” she said. “You’ve got to get them prepared for global subjects. They might not be able to go to this museum. We are in a small community. . . . So this provides an opportunity they wouldn’t otherwise get. This allows us to put them in places where they wouldn’t ordinarily get to go.”
As for the team at Nevada’s schools, Blake is complimentary. “We’ve got great teachers. We’re a community and our number one concern is helping the kids. Whoever we need to go to for resources or support, we go to. We have a good principal and superintendent,” she said.
After graduating from Nevada High, Blake went to Southern Arkansas University, where she got first a bachelor’s degree and then a Master of Arts in teaching. She is also nationally board certified, a special distinction among teachers that means she knows and can do things that go beyond what is required for state licensure alone. On its website, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards calls its certification “the most respected professional certification available in teaching.”
Blake's sixth grade class poses with model plant cells and other display pieces they created.