My name is Kathy Greene and I am a reading intervention teacher at Slater-Marietta Elementary School. I have taught at Slater-Marietta since 1991 when I began my teaching career.  I graduated from the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg in 1991 with a degree in Elementary Education. Since that time, I have completed various education courses through Furman University, Southern Wesleyan University and North Greenville University. I have also completed multiple workshops involving educational and professional development along with Read to Succeed courses.  I have been voted "Teacher of the Year" twice, and this year is my 35th year teaching at Slater-Marietta Elementary School.

     My educational philosophy is that all children have the capability of learning. Such learning can take various modes: visual, tactile, and auditory. As an educator, I have to tap into the mode(s) in which individual students learn best and supply the stimulation to increase their retention of the various objectives stated in the curriculum. During my thirty-three years of teaching, I have had the opportunity to interact and observe the different modalities of learning. Some of these experiences have involved learning disabled students and developmentally delayed students who needed more visual and tactile presentations of a lesson than another student. Special attention to their needs facilitated the progress of all the students in the class so that none were left behind. When students have success in learning because of my philosophy, I receive gratification in knowing that I have helped to equip them with some of the skills that they will need to meet the challenges that they will face in the future. I enjoy seeing students learn all that they can and transfer knowledge to a myriad of areas. They learn much better when they see the connections between things. 

    An important tenant of my philosophy is the knowledge that I must continue to monitor, adjust, and adapt to the variety of students that enter my classroom and their varying academic backgrounds. This knowledge allows me to interact with students on a level which facilitates their growth as well as my own. I know that a teacher must remain flexible and also maintain a commitment to his/her growth as well as that of students. Through observation, I identify a student’s strengths and weakness. This places me in a position to adjust my lesson presentations in order to adapt to the needs of the learner. Such adjustments are critical to teaching and making sure that students learn. I see the importance of teaching and learning being a collaborative effort between teacher, student, and parent. My teaching is reflective of this understanding. I try to present lessons in the different learning modalities and then share the skills developed in the modalities with parents in order that they will be able to use these strategies at home. In my teaching, I use my PET (Program for Effective Teaching) training by stating the objective, giving many examples, providing much practice and repetition, and asking questions to check for understanding. I distribute information to parents that will allow them to reinforce concepts and principles learned or practiced in the classroom. 

    Another part of my teaching style is to create an atmosphere of learning. Each year, I take special consideration of the setting-up of my classroom. I want to stimulate their imaginations as well as provide them concrete resources of which to turn for help. I have found that careful consideration of the posters, wall hangings, and bulletin boards aids the students in learning specific concepts, such as telling time, knowing the alphabet, number words, and color words as well as many other things. It is important for me to use these resources as well as familiarize the students with them. It is essential that students have a solid knowledge base. Such a good foundation will lead to more creativity and is built upon my tapping into the different modalities. Structure is important in my lessons; it provides a consistency for students, which helps them to learn.