NMSI Teacher Spotlight - Kitten Guere
Jerry Richard |
September 16, 2021
“Ever since I was five, I knew I wanted to be a teacher,” said 8th grade Language Arts teacher Kitten Guere. As the eldest of three in a military family, Guere, according to her mother, would pretend to hold class in their courtyard and boss the other kids around. “Plus, I had very good teachers throughout my life, so I wanted to be like them.”
2021 marks Guere’s 25th year of teaching in Fairborn City Schools in Fairborn, Ohio. During her career, she’s been designated as an Ohio Master Teacher as well as a mentoring teacher for Cedarville University and Washington State University.
She first became familiar with the National Math + Science Initiative as her school enrolled in the Laying the Foundation program in the middle 2010’s. Recently, she attended NMSI August Content Workshop and shared that it reaffirmed her existing teaching practices. “It’s a great reminder of why it’s important to continue to challenge students with advanced learning and inspire them to think outside the box.”
Additionally, Guere wants to help new teachers and leadership teams think outside of the box, too.
“I've been a mentor for several years and [new teachers] rely on the district to give them what they need to do. While we have textbooks, I’ve relied more on curriculum guides and maps to pull in my own stories for lessons,” shared Guere. “But I see things starting to change [with school leadership], so they want everybody doing the same thing at the same time and they really want scripted lessons and that's not always the best thing [for students]. I like that NMSI gives you the materials but doesn’t tell you how to use them verbatim. A guideline, yes, but you can share the information for your classroom. That's something younger teachers need to experience.”
For new teachers considering NMSI’s Laying the Foundation training, Guere adds, “It’s valuable professional development that you can take back [to your classroom] and use immediately.”
Interested in learning how NMSI can impact your school? Let’s talk.