Published: May 08, 2008 09:41 pm         

Teacher of the Year: Part 2

Add a little Fun — Karen Jewell makes math natural

Ms. Karen Jewell walked down the rows of her fourth grade classroom Monday holding the most coveted of school-day treasures: “ good job” stickers. The scratch of double digit multiplication hummed in the room, with pencil eraser heads in constant use.

“You’ve got to carry your 2,” she told one student, bending over to check his work. “A lot of people are having trouble in the old potato row.”

The potato row, Jewell will tell you, is the bottom row of numbers to be multiplied. The top row is known as the meat row.

“If you eat your meat and eat your potatoes, you get your dessert,” she explained. “The dessert is the right answer.”

Once Jewell distributed the stickers, she was back up at the whiteboard explaining the evening’s homework assignment. Then she handed out the second most beloved of school treasures.

“If anyone wants to try and do it paper and pencil, I’ve got some big-time bonus points,” she said.

It’s exactly this kind of motivation and creativity that has made Jewell one of the top teachers in the district. And a few weeks ago, she was recognized as such when she was named the London-Laurel County Chamber of Commerce’s elementary teacher of the year.

Jewell was thrilled.

“I was just speechless when I found out,” she confided. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

Jewell has been a teacher at Sublimity Elementary for the past 21 years. She came to London from Columbia on a basketball scholarship for Sue Bennett College. There, she earned her associate’s degree and decided to pursue a bachelor’s degree at Eastern Kentucky University.

While she knew she wanted to go on with her education, she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do.

“I went from wanting to be a secretary to being a P.E. teacher,” she said. “It was on the drive to EKU that I decided.”

It wasn’t a wholly random decision, however.

“I have a middle sister who has Down’s Syndrome,” she said. “At age 7 or 8, I would try to teach her how to read.”

Attending EKU, Jewell received her bachelor’s in elementary education and special education. She then went on to earn her master’s degree and Rank 1.

She started teaching at Sublimity in January 1987 and has taught the fourth grade ever since.

“I can treat them like little adults,” she said. “To me, they respond better to that. They’re so different by the end of the year than when we get them. We just beam with pride.”

By “we” Jewell means herself and her teacher’s assistant Tina Grigsby.

“She’s my right arm,” Jewell laughed. “With her doing all this little nitpicky stuff, I can teach. If she didn’t do all she did, I would never get home.”

Grigsby is quick to praise Jewell in return.

“She’s just a natural,” she said.

Jewell admits she loves being a teacher.

“I still have that fire,” she said. “I say when I stop having fun, it’s time to go home.”

Jewell said being a good teacher relies on a number of things.

“You’ve got to have their respect and you’ve got to make them understand that what they’re learning is important,” she said. “You’ve got to have fun along the way — because they’re kids. And I bend over backwards to make sure things are fair in here.”

And while she doesn’t pretend to know it all, with 21 years behind her, it’s clear Jewel knows all the tricks.

As math class ends for the day, Jewell has one last school-day treasure to hand out.

“Who made their Accelerated Reader goal for the month of April? We’re going to have extra recess,” she said. “It’s a beautiful day and we’re going to take advantage of it.”



Staff writer Tara Ka-prowy can be reached by e-mail at tkaprowy@sentinel-echo.com.