Capturing young minds
Teacher extraordinaire: Former Salmon Arm resident Janine Gummesen, centre back, poses with her Ecole St. Gerard Grade 5 class in Grand Prairie, Alta. after she received her Heritage National Excellence Award.
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Updated: November 04, 2009 12:20 AM
She’s young, she’s unconventional and she’s well-loved.
A former Salmon Arm resident is one of just five teachers across Canada who was presented with this year’s Heritage National Excellence Awards for Teachers (NEAT).
Janine Gummesen was chosen under the award’s criteria of being a teacher who has made a positive impact on her students’ lives, inspired a love for learning and helped her students to reach their full potential.
Gummesen, 26, teaches at Ecole St. Gerard in Grand Prairie, Alta., where she was nominated for the award by parents of her students.
“My son tells me that the best part of being in this wonderful teacher’s class is that every day he feels special, smart and talented...,” writes parent Ginette Pelé. “Not only has this caring teacher taught my son core curriculum; she has broadened his horizons to teach him about life, compassion and the power of achieving dreams.”
Pelé talks about Gummesen’s unique instructional strategies including: “removing the door from a classroom closet and converting it into a special space where students can go if they need a mental or emotional break. In this unique space, students can write messages of hope and caring on the walls, they can read without distraction and they can review the many strategies this teacher has provided them with in order to be successful.”
Pelé adds that Gummesen attends after-school events her students participate in, arranges a monthly family event, created a junior leadership group, and wrote plays with her students on issues such as bullying and abuse that were performed in front of the community.
In her classroom, Gummesen took out all the chairs and gave the students inflatable balls to sit on. Explains Gummesen: “If I can’t sit still, how can I expect them to?”
Gummesen is currently in her fourth year of teaching. She started as a Grade 3 teacher but moved up to Grade 4 with her class, “because I didn’t want to let go of them,” she told the Observer. “I get too attached to them. One or two kids don’t get understood by the teacher and if you can actually make a connection with them and provide them with a good year, it’s hard to let them go.”
After those first two years she taught a different Grade 4 class, which again she accompanied up a grade, this time to Grade 5.
“A lot of the kids have challenges, they don’t really fit into a regular classroom, whether it be behavioral, emotional or maybe just being smaller... Those were the kids I was able to push further, see they were able to do things really.”
She adds, “I think we just had fun in class.”
Principal Henri Chauvet is thrilled with her, saying she lives and breathes the kids.
“She’s fantastic, she works incredibly hard... There’s lots of movement and play no matter what the subject.”
At the presentation of the heritage award, Gummesen’s students were asked to say one sentence about her.
“One boy said he likes my class because I let them fly airplanes around,” she laughs. “If you can take something they like doing and turn it fun and educative, why not? You can pretty much turn anything into a game.”
Gummesen took part in French Immersion as a Salmon Arm student, when it was still a partial program. She said that although the French Immersion program in Salmon Arm was usually only for motivated students, it’s not so much like that in other parts of Canada.
She’s clear on which Salmon Arm teacher inspired her.
“Madame Dyer... You got to class and knew you were going to learn, you weren’t going to be bored... She understood the kids. She was able to get to their level. She knew what a rough day was and was able to accept that and help you get through it.”
Gummesen intends to keep teaching until she’s an old woman.
“I have no desire to do any other job. I belong in the classroom.”
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