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Dear Teacher Feature Judges,
We want to nominate our sixth grade teacher, Mr. Wimmer, for Teacher Feature. Some of the reasons we believe Mr. Wimmer should be chosen are:
He believes in us. He gives us chances to be winners in lots of ways. He required the students in his class to enter something in the PTA Reflections contest, the Science Fair, and he nominated some students for a leadership opportunity. Some of us won these contests. We wouldn't have had these good experiences if it wasn't for Mr. Wimmer.
Mr. Wimmer teaches us by telling us stories of experiences he's had that helped him learn. His stories make leaning more fun and enjoyable. They teach us lessons and make us laugh. They're good advice we can remember that will help us. After he tells us a story, he tells us a motto to go with it and then he reminds us by saying the motto for us when we need to hear it. Some of the things he says are, "Dare to try", "Go the distance", "Go the extra mile", and "No one else might know you didn't do you best but if you know, you need to fix it". One saying that his dad taught him and now he teaches us is, "Do your best and clean up your mess."
He remembers what it's like to be a kid. He thinks we should learn at school but we should have fun too. He thinks P.E. is important and he gets in the game with us.
He's good at explaining things so we can understand. When he explains math, he even does some of the problems so we can see how to do them. (And that way we don't have to do as many and we all get the problems he did right!)
He gives us opportunities to do things we've never tried before like wood burning and clay. He remembers how fun art is and lets us try lots of new things. He tells us what he likes about our work and encourages us to be creative.
Mr. Wimmer likes kids and likes to be around kids. He likes us. He's always there for us. He does lots of nice things for us so we want to do something nice for him.
We really hope you'll choose Mr. Wimmer to be winner in Teacher Feature because he deserves it and no one from our school has ever won before. It would be really cool if Mr. Wimmer could be the first.
Sincerely,
Mr. Wimmer's Sixth Grade Class
(Ideas and wording by Makayla Bernardo, Brooks Conway, and Ashley Nicholes.)
Cal Wimmer has been teaching for 29 years, 28 of those at Greenwood Elementary in American Fork. He has seen a lot of programs and teaching styles come and go in the last three decades. He's pulled the best from these and has come up with one that works for him and his students, but he'll be the first to tell you, it isn't the program that makes the difference and teaches a child, it's the teacher. Luckily, several hundred children have benefited from having Mr. Wimmer for a teacher.
Linda Bethers, Media specialist Greenwood Elementary,
