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Part of an occasional series on the members of the 2005
All-USA Teacher Team, USA TODAY's recognition program
for outstanding K-12 teachers. Winners share $2,500 awards with their schools.
To nominate a teacher for the 2006 team,
visit allstars.usatoday.com.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- As her third-graders at Marvin Ward Elementary School get ready for a health lesson on hydration, Kathy Lineberger calls up a few pupils to the front of the room to share what they know.
Two girls who show horses say they have to drink a lot of water to maintain energy. A cross-country runner says she fills up bottles of Gatorade and water every day. But the soccer player doesn't have anything to add.
"Oh, I know your coach, and he thinks drinking water is important," Lineberger says with a smile and wink.
Lineberger, 56, knows the coach and knows the pupils' interests. And though she was surprised in this case, she has a pretty good idea who can stimulate a class discussion. She is a testament to the power of homework: her own.
The week before the school year starts, Lineberger calls the parents of all her academically gifted third-graders. She introduces herself, finds out more about the families and asks about any special needs or interests their kids have.
The conversations, which last up to a half-hour, help Lineberger form a partnership with parents and set a tone for the school year.
"I need for them to know my name and number. It's so much better than to call (for the first time) when there's a problem," she says.
The phone calls also give Lineberger a leg up in reaching her pupils, individually and collectively. "She knows where they are developmentally. She takes the time to know how to approach each of the children," principal MaryAnn Sonntag says.
An inventive teacher with more ideas than she can squeeze into a year, Lineberger also uses the information to figure out how to best teach the curriculum. Kids' interests figure into everything from individual and group reading selections to major class projects.
"I look at the kids I have each year and tailor the projects to the children," she says. Theatrically inclined classes have written and produced dramas, nature lovers learn math and science on the school nature trail, and an artistic class folded origami cranes to send to Japan. This year's class has several horse-loving girls and construction-minded boys, so Lineberger developed lessons on Icelandic ponies and shipbuilding when they studied Vikings. Upcoming lessons on ancient Rome will incorporate chariot races and using concrete.
"She makes things we think are boring fun," says Ann-Marie Hervey, 9.
Lineberger has to follow pacing guides for the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, but her gifted pupils tend to master the material quickly. Creative projects help make learning more engaging and allow her to take lessons further, she says. Using a pie-eating contest to have children measure time and weight, for example, leads to figuring out how fast it would take various contestants to eat a whole pie and graphing the class's favorite types of pie.
"That woman can take anything and make a lesson," Sonntag says.
Lineberger also has a Midas touch when it comes to winning grants to pay for her ideas. She has won more than $50,000 for projects ranging from using bocce ball to teach math concepts to building the school nature trail, math garden and peace pavilion.
Like the links she makes between kids' interests and curriculum and the rapport she builds with pupils, Lineberger's grant-writing starts with extra homework. Her head swirls with ideas as she waits for the right class and the right grant to come together, Sonntag says. Before she writes a grant, she tracks down previous winners to see whether she can figure out what made them successful.
It's a lot of work, but it keeps teaching and learning fresh for Lineberger. And it lets her show the importance of hard work by example.
"I don't want kids to think because they're academically gifted, it's always going to happen," she says. "They have to work hard."
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