Best Teacher Gets Personal

She was the last kid to be picked for the team . . . the middle school girl who didn’t fit in . . . a nerd. But Dyane Smokorowski wanted to be a teacher since she was in preschool.

And she did. In fact, the Andover Middle School language arts teacher was named Kansas Teacher of the Year last November.

“I remember being very upset about being left out of things,” said Smokorowski. “That has stayed with me my entire teaching career. I go out of my way to let every student in my class know that he  is important; he is loved; he is a piece of this big community. I’ve had students say to me later on that ‘this was the first class where somebody recognized who I was.’

“Everybody takes something from their childhood, and I decided I was going to make that better for someone else.”

How does Smokorowski put those ideas into practice?  There are two rules in her classroom:

• We respect every opinion here.
• When somebody is not doing so hot, we’re all going to lift that person up.

Dyane Smokorowski was greeted by President Barack Obama during her trip to Washington D.C. as part of her award for winning Kansas Teacher of the Year honors. She also went to Alabama to meet with other teachers and staffers of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Camp last month. Technology and its uses in the classroom is one of Smokorowski’s primary areas of interest.

Middle School Challenges

Smokorowski agrees that there are challenges in the classroom–especially in middle school. But she relishes working with that age group.

“When you’re 14, life hasn’t jaded you so much as a person three or four years older. The kids are still in wonder as to what the possibilities of the world are. They still love school, and they want to be there. So, when I look at that age, I say, ‘Gosh, guys, we’re on a great adventure!’”

Still, there are emotions and physical changes to deal with on a daily basis.

“Disruptive behavior comes from students who aren’t engaged in the learning process,” says Smokorowski. And she finds that being personally involved with her students, she learns about their personal struggles or problems with subject content.

“We provide opportunities for the students to learn self-management skills, keep classroom climates safe and positive, and design learning opportunities where they can physically move every 15 to 30 minutes,” she said. Those are the techniques to help with student focus and reduce disruption.

Showing students why it’s important to be at school and to excel is Smokorowski’s recipe for making sure her students find success.

“Her classroom is really alive,” said Bret White, the Andover Middle School principal who, along with teacher Kelly Helmer, nominated Smokorowski for Teacher of the Year. “She has a passion for teaching in a project-based classroom. The relationship she has with students is amazing!”

A Project-based Classroom

What is a project-based classroom? A few years ago, her class was reading Stealing Freedom by Liza Carbonne. The story was about the Underground Railway to help runaway slaves get to northern states.

“The message of this book is that the more you know, the more the world opens up to you,” relates Smokorowski. “Slaves weren’t allowed to read, but the character in the book teaches herself to read and discovers there’s a bigger life than the one she’s living.”

Every project in Smokorowski’s classroom has to have a real-world component, so her students wanted to learn about slavery today. “Well, this wasn’t an area I had first-hand knowledge about, so I put it out on my social network, and, lo and behold, a lady in my church had volunteered at an orphanage in Nigeria. Many of those children, if they weren’t in the orphanage, would be in slavery.”

That connection opened up a nine-month journey, teaching the students that education makes a difference here and worldwide. Her students brainstormed about all of this, and decided to learn more . . . and help. By communicating directly with the orphans through Skype, the Andover students learned that the Nigerians wanted to start a school right there at their orphanage.

“Our students ended up raising $1,000 for shipping costs and found district teachers to donate old textbooks and workbooks–a truckbed full.

“In exchange, the Nigerian students helped provide artwork for our library,” she said. Sounds easy, but problems cropped up when they found that the $1,000 wouldn’t even begin to pay for shipping. The Andover students problem-solved that by Skyping with the Nigerian sister program in Dallas, Texas. They took the $1,000 to a thrift shop and bought suitcases. As their staffers traveled to Nigeria, they took an extra suitcase filled with the supplies. It took about 10 months, but they got it.

And who took the supplies to Dallas?

“I called ‘Mr. Smok’ (her husband) and asked him how he felt about spending Labor Day in Dallas,” laughed Smokorowski. “He agreed.”

“Our students learned that if you can change one person’s life, it can change your life. And if you ask how education can change the world, we can show that.”

Journey to Teacher of the Year

Smokorowski’s journey to being named Teacher of the Year started at age 4 when she saw her preschool teachers doing lesson planning during rest time. She decided that was much more interesting than resting and thought, “Someday I’m going to be a teacher, and I’m going to help design things kids do.”

She grew up in Wichita, where her parents were both Emergency Medical Technician instructors (“I was the ‘victim’ covered with gauze.”) They moved to Indiana for 10 years but returned in time for Smokorowski to finish her college education at Wichita State University in 1993.

In the meantime, Smokorowski had a life-changing experience by being chosen one of five out of 250 applicants to work at Walt Disney World in 1992. That’s where she learned to talk to people.

“I worked in outdoor foods, but I was able to talk to children from all over the world, and I LOVED it! The job was to make somebody’s life happy, richer. I’ve taken that philosophy and used it in my classroom ever since.”

Smokorowski started her career at Pleasant Valley Middle School in Wichita and admits to being “a little frightened” the first day, but ready to change the world.

“That first day was like I was ready to jump off the edge of the earth into this giant sea of possibilities. You need to keep things in perspective, but I took both feet and jumped right off.”

Smokorowski, now in her 15th year of teaching, also taught in the Renwick district and has been in Andover for six years.

And who was Smokorowski’s best teacher? “Madame Janet Koch, my high school French teacher at Pendleton Heights High School in Indiana. She was an amazing mentor and got to know me as a person. She was so passionate and high energy. I knew I was going to be a teacher, and I wanted to be one like her.”

When Smokorowski was named Teacher of the Year, she wrote Koch a letter and said, “This belongs to you as much as it belongs to me, because you inspired me to be the teacher I am.”

Love for Technology

Smokorowski, the nerd, has used her love of technology to take her career to the next level. She has been a senior teacher and premier moderator for Intel Corporation’s Pre-teacher Professional Development Program. Part of her job is to produce a monthly webinar for the program.

“She is absolutely one of the best folks we’ve had,” said Shelley Shott, Global K-12 Education Manager for Corporate Affairs at Intel.

Smokorowski, who mentors about technology integration in the classroom, considers Shott her best mentor. And Shott is effusive about Smokorowski.

“[Dyane Smokorowski] cares more about her students than most any teacher anywhere in the world. She is innovative and is a phenomenal mentor; I’d sure like her to be my child’s teacher,” said Shott.

And this brings Smokorowski to the next part of her career–technology integration for the Andover district. She will help other teachers bring technology like Skype into their classrooms to give more meaning to projects.

She encourages young people to become teachers, saying, “Knowing even one day with one child can redirect the course of their whole life is a wonderful gift of opportunity. Create opportunities for your students. Give them an opportunity to change the world, and they will!”

By Cathy Feemster. Published in East Wichita News, August, 2013