Award-Winning Teacher Connects With Students
Published Apr 15, 2007
Mechanicville Middle School teacher Elizabeth Day, New York State Teacher of the Year for 2005, knows her students by heart.
“There’s a quotation that says ‘Kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’
It has become more and more important to me through my years of teaching to make sure I know my students as individuals, know something about them (personally) and to make sure there’s a personal connection,” she says.
After 30 years in the classroom – all of which were spent in front of sixth graders, save for a bit of student-teaching – Day has honed strategies that work. In the past, she has taught reading, language arts, science and math. But thanks to a recent school departmentalization, Day is now the sixth-grade math teacher at Mechanicville Middle School.
A cantor at The Assumption St. Paul Catholic Church, Day has also sung for weddings and funerals of former students. She particularly enjoys leading the character education program at her school.
“I’ve always believed that the kids should do things for other people,” she says, explaining that she directs students in plays and skits to be performed at nursing homes, helps them send valentines to veterans and give away cookies at Christmas.
Story by Laurie C. Battles
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