Just before her first-grade students began their writing workshop Friday morning, March 2, at Cedar Lane Elementary School, Sue Ann Gleason gathered them together on a rug and began to flip through a book about seasons.
"Isn't this a wonderful book about seasons?" she asked her class.
The book, however, was not written by any classic author or prominent children's storyteller. It was written by Uday Kalvakota, one of the students in her class.
"Do you know what Uday has done?" she asked her students after reading the book. "He has written a circle book. Some books begin at one place and circle all the way around and end there, too. That is wonderful Uday."
After reading Uday's book, Gleason talked to her students about what they could do during the day's writing workshop. On an easel she wrote each suggestion, including writing a book, writing an article for the class' newspaper, Pigeon Place Post, or writing in their nature watch journals about the weather changes they have noticed. As the children began to write, Gleason moves from student to student, helping them with their work, talking to them about what they are writing or encouraging them to explore their imaginations.
TUESDAY, FEB. 20, Gleason was named the 2007 Agnes Meyer Award recipient at the School Board meeting. One of five finalists, Gleason had been nominated by Alicia Boyles, a parent of a former student at Cedar Lane Elementary School. As part of her nomination packet, Gleason received recommendation letters from parents, former students, colleagues, former administrators, but she never expected to win.
"I practiced how to be a gracious loser," she said. "So I could be a good example for my kids. I was stunned."
This marks the third time that Gleason had been nominated for the Agnes Meyer award. She was also nominated in 1994, when she was a teacher at Coles Elementary School in Manassas, and in 2005 by the parents of Cedar Lane.
"I was completely surprised that a whole two years later a whole new set of parents would want to nominate me," she said. "I was completely honored."
Michele Detweiler, whose daughter, Laura, was a student of Gleason's last year and whose recommendation letter became Gleason's nomination letter, said that no teacher deserves the award more.
"She just has a gift," Detweiler said. "She is both a born teacher and a developed teacher."
HOWEVER, GLEASON, who has been teaching first grade since 1979, did not always know she wanted to teach. It was not until she was in college and she spent time in the preschool class her sister was teaching that she realized being an educator was her calling.
"I just loved it," she said. "After being in her room, I switched schools my sophomore year in college."
New York-native Gleason left the University of Buffalo where she was studying American studies and went to the State University of New York, College at Buffalo where she studied teaching, specifically reading and upper elementary education.
"I just loved the first grade," Gleason said. "There is a light in the eye and a spark in their step. They're fresh, they're eager and they can't wait to learn."
Gleason said she enjoys the challenge that first grade poses, with some students avid readers and others that are still mastering the alphabet.
"It is a huge span," she said. "I see myself as a conductor, with different instruments all coming together to create this great piece of music. That's what it's like in the classroom."
Alex Walker, also a first-grade teacher at Cedar Lane who occupies the classroom next to Gleason, said she is impressed with the way in which Gleason interacts with students.
"She's very warm and nurturing with her students," Walker said. "She really listens to them and takes in their interests so they feel a real ownership in what they are doing. She takes students to a higher level."
IN AN EDUCATIONAL world where test scores have become paramount to judging a teacher's success, Gleason said she focuses instead on making her classroom a microcosm for society and bringing the real world down to the level of her students.
"They have to be able to make sense of the world around them," she said. "We are sowing the seeds for future learning. We have to bring it into every aspect of their lives."
With programs such as the walk and talk morning constitutional where children talk about nature and the environment, to tracking mushers in the 2007 Iditarod dog sled race, to creating their own newspaper, Gleason brings standardized learning into the real world. In her classroom Friday morning, Gleason is preparing to ask the students if they have chosen which musher they will track during this year's dog sled race. But first, she points to the 2002 map hanging on the bulletin board and asks her students how many years ago 2002 was. Then she points out that the mushers race north on even years and south on odd years and asks her students which way the mushers will race this year and how to figure that out.
"The way that she would interweave the curriculum with things they can really relate to is amazing," Detweiler said. "She hooks their interest in something and masterfully interweaves that with the [required] curriculum. Their young minds are such sponges, which is why I am grateful that she teaches first grade."
Each year, Gleason's students participate in a money economy. They are paid every Friday, as if they have a job. They get bonuses when they are deserved and they pay fines for misbehavior or classroom infractions, much as they would as adults. April 15, her students will even pay taxes, with one-tenth of their "income" going to her, the "government."
"Then that opens up the whole conversation of why we pay taxes," she said. "The real world is about real writing, problem solving. I can still teach those SOLs, but I am not committed to the idea of teaching for a test."
WALKER SAID that Gleason's classroom, while being challenging, is also very child-friendly.
"Her classroom has a very developmental approach," she said.
As a team leader, Walker added, Gleason gets the other first-grade teachers at Cedar Lane on the same page, so each student is getting the same curriculum at the same time.
"She says, 'Let's talk about what these standards are really asking'" Walker said. "We bring our ideas to the table and organize our lessons together."
Walker said that Gleason's methods of teaching do not only impact her students, but the community as a whole.
"The parents see us all on the same page," she said. "They know that every student is getting the same quality education."
Gleason's methods also work outside of her classroom as well, with students able to apply what they learn to their future class work and curriculum.
"So many times there have been connections that Laura has made," Detweiler said about her daughter. "She retained the information she learned last year and has internalized it."
FOR AS LONG as Gleason has been a teacher, she still considers herself a student.
"Still today I feel it doesn't matter how long you have been teaching, you have to keep reading," she said. "You have to ask, 'Why am I teaching this? What does it have to do with real-life learning?'"
Both Walker and Detweiler said they are inspired by the amount of outside learning Gleason continues to do.
"She is constantly bringing in books about reading and education," Walker said.
"She spends her summers at workshops," Detweiler said. "Last year she did in-service training for teachers. She goes so above and beyond what happens in regular classrooms."
Gleason also expects that the parents of her students will continue to learn. On back-to-school night she holds a seminar on how their children are learning and what to expect from them as the year progresses.
"From day one I make them a partner in education," she said. Her expectations from parents, Gleason said, goes back to her relationship with her own father and how he used to help her with her homework.
"Had I not had a dad who sat with me, there would have been so many concepts that would have gone over my head," she said.
Detweiler said that when her daughter started the first grade, she did not know how to be an affective parent-teacher, but through Gleason she learned.
"Now when they come home, now we know what to do," she said. "I feel like I will be able to help Laura do better in all of her grades because of what Ms. Gleason taught me."
Gleason and her husband do not have any children of their own, but she said that might actually be her gift.
"Maybe that's why I'm so dedicated to these children," she said. "I give birth to 25 children every year."
While Gleason has acted as a mentor to many teachers over the year, she said there is one thing that drives her and her classroom.
"I love what I do," she said.