2022 Teacher of the Year: Kristin deJong

Bayless School District Teacher of the Year Kristin deJong

When I think about inspiring others in my role as an educator, my mind always comes back to the students. For me, being a positive role model for them means to…

Ignite a love for learning Never give up Stay consistent Practice a growth mindset Idealize progress over perfection Respect & celebrate all differences Encourage with love

If I’m being honest, though, this year my group of students inspired me just as much as I hope to have inspired them. Due to the pandemic, this class of resilient 2nd Grade students had yet to experience a “normal” school year. With COVID-19 came instructional changes, challenges, quarantines, virtual learning methods, etc. Over half of my class was completely virtual for the 2020-2021 school year. Because of that, I knew it was going to take purposeful, creative planning to come up with lessons that kept all students engaged and excited about learning.

Writing was a subject for which I especially needed to keep that in mind. I decided to do something a little bit different this year to close out our informational writing unit by having us publish a real book. I believe giving students a choice in the writing process is a big way to inspire them to want to write. Keeping this in mind, I let my class choose what our topic would be. They decided on the seven continents, because students in my class represent four out of the seven continents! We also had recently studied the continents in social studies so this gave us an opportunity for crosscurricular learning. Over several weeks, my students researched, brainstormed, discussed, and wrote many facts about their chosen continent. Once the final draft was completed, we mailed all the pages to a publishing company to publish our book.

The day the books were delivered was one of the proudest days I’ve had as an educator. It was amazing to see how great the students felt becoming real, published authors. The smiles and excitement lasted for days! I believe the project inspired my students to think beyond the classroom about what they can accomplish. Overall, it has been an amazing year learning and growing together. I think I speak for most educators when I say that the work we do doesn’t just last from August to May, but hopefully lasts a lifetime.

To my Bayless family, stay inspired. You are doing AMAZING things.

Ms. deJong’s class with their published book, “The Amazing Continents of our World.”