Post date: May 12, 2014 7:46:26 PM
Educators add character to SBHS
by Shelly Hedger
Every fall, the doors open at Sturgis Brown High School for students to get back into the halls for another year of learning. This year, five new educators joined staff members at SBHS. Shelbi Bulant in Special education, Kevin Chase in Mathematics, Jolene Kayser in Science, Brett Monson in Agriculture, and Bill Godsil in Personal Finance/ Career Planning as well as head football coach.
As students walk around and talk to their friends who may have one of the new teachers, they share information about how their classes are. For some of the upperclassmen, it’s kind of weird to hear about how the teaching styles have changed with a new teacher being there.
“I feel that teaching is one of the most rewarding career fields. I love being able to help students become successful learners,” Shelbi Bulat said.
Bulat taught in Douglas, Wyoming, both for middle and high school education for five years. She then moved with her family to Sturgis, South Dakota, where she is now teaching for the Special Education Department where she also teaches math.
Her teaching has changed a little bit setup wise, Bulat has decided that she wanted to become a teacher when she was working at a daycare. She started teaching when she was 29 years old and still loves teaching to this very day, she said.
Along with Mrs. Bulat SBHS was given a new Ag teacher to open Ag students eyes.
“I wanted to figure out how I could make the biggest impact over the longest period of time. Growing people seemed like a good investment of my energy and life,” Brett Monson said.
Monson taught English for Alpha Language Learning Institute in Ningbo, China. He is not quite sure why he wanted to teach at SBHS, but he felt the need to come here.
Monson moved to Sturgis in June 2013 by himself and is currently teaching in the Ag Department. Originally from Webster, SD, Monson’s passions include international travel, education and people.
Monson holds a B.S. in Agricultural Education from South Dakota State University where he served as a state FFA officer and student body president. Monson has not wanted to teach students in high school for very long, but said he did get used to it.
To join Monson is Godsil who is taking over as the new Football coach and also a career planning teacher.
Instructor Bill Godsil has been teaching for 14 years. He has his Bachelors degree in History Education and Master Degrees in Educational Teaching and Administrations. He was currently teaching in U.S. History and Psychology. Last term he taught Career planning and Psychology.
“Don’t compare your results to someone else’s. You can never be another person, you can only be a better version of yourself,” Godsil said.
When Godsil was in Grand Junction, CO, he was a history teacher and the assistant football coach. While he was teaching at Gallup High School in New Mexico, Godsil coached football and wrestling. In Miami and Arizona, he was head coach for football, the assistant coach for baseball, and the recovery teacher.
In Bagdad High School in Arizona, he was a head coach for both baseball and football, while also teaching history and weightlifting. When he taught at Montrose High School in Colorado, Godsil also taught history and was the assistant football and baseball coach.
Jolene Kayser came to Sturgis with her husband, Brian, who also works for the district as a computer tech. She wanted to come to SBHS because she knew the school district, from her previous work at Piedmont, Sturgis Elementary, Whitewood, and Rural School with STARBASE. For the last three years, Kayser has been working for an education program called STARBASE.
STARBASE worked with 5th and 6th grade classes to teach hands-on physical science, engineering, and computers. Since STARBASE became defunct due to funding issues, Kayser looked elsewhere to share her love of science with students. Of all the schools in the district, Sturgis was at the top of her list. She knew she wanted to be a teacher at SBHS when she saw a position open up for a physical science teacher.
“I think my work with the students hands -on it helps learn more what they are learning”
Kevin Chase, who came to Sturgis to be closer to home and also to his family, teaches geometry and (GIC) Geometry in Construction with Mr. Chad Hedderman. In geometry class, they work with hands-on projects.
Chase moved back here to be closer home and he loves teaching. Each class he teaches with different methods, in his Geometry class he likes his students to do hands on learning projects. Whereas in his GIC class they do more hands on projects.
The GIC class is working on a house for the habit for humanity, which is taking up most of their time. He tries to connect to his students and he likes to see how they learn things and tries to tie that into class learning.
As the year comes to an end it will be ending with some news teachers that have tought news of doing what they teach. But as we come back next year we will still see all the teachers old and new all throughout the school, waiting to walk the halls once again.