Top Teachers 1998

Yesterday, we saluted a dozen of the outstanding high-school seniors from around the region. Today, we're recognizing some of the teachers who help to assure there are more outstanding students on the way.

We asked students, parents, administrators and readers to nominate teachers who have made a difference in their schools. In this section, you'll meet 10 teachers who stood out. They're all extraordinary in different ways. And at a luncheon yesterday to honor them and this year's outstanding graduates, each of these teachers received a $500 check from The Times to take back to their classrooms to further benefit their students.

DAVID ECHOLS UNIVERSITY PREPARATORY ACADEMY SEATTLE

His classroom is filled with replicas of ancient-history artifacts, researched and crafted by students - an Egyptian river boat, a Chinese double action pump, a Roman mosaic, a model of the first temple of Solomon.

David Echols, an eighth-grade history teacher at University Preparatory Academy who jokingly calls himself "the gray-haired gentleman," is passionate about teaching middle-schoolers.

"People say middle-schoolers are so spaced out by hormones that we should just sit back and give them easy assignments and try to boost their self-esteem - but I don't buy that," said Echols, who has been teaching for 38 years.

"We spend lots of time talking down to kids. The best thing to do is treat them like adults. The vast majority of kids respond to that. The only thing they're lacking is data. They know how to reason."

Jeanette Williams, associate head of school at University Prep, says his teaching methods are innovative.

He sprinkles in a variety of hands-on, out-of-your-seat activities along with traditional lectures and discussion. At the beginning of each year, for example, he has his students gather at a huge playfield next to the school and walk a timeline to get a better sense of how much time separated major scientific discoveries.

"These projects enable those kids who have strong manual and visual skills a chance to take advantage of them," Echols said.

Echols, a Santa Barbara, Calif., native, graduated from Stanford University with a degree in history and started his teaching career at a strict all-boys boarding school in Hong Kong. He's been at University Prep for 13 years.

He created his own textbook with articles and handouts because he couldn't find sufficient materials, and he tries to prepare his students for what's coming in high school - teaching them how to take notes and holding them to high standards, said Williams.

"He does a good job of laying out the road map," she said. - Tamra Fitzpatrick

KAREN MIKOLASY SHORECREST HIGH SCHOOL SHORELINE

Karen Mikolasy is a whir of talk and touch, of questions and answers, compliments and critiques, of hugs and pats, knowing glances, in-jokes and information of many kinds.

"Come here!" she yells across her classroom to one girl. "I just have to give you a hug!"

"Write that down," she instructs another student who complains that all the school's AIDS videos always show only straight couples, never gays or IV-drug users. "I'll take it to my next meeting."

"Are you still doing independent study?" she says, as the next boy demands her attention. "No? I know, because you weren't doing any work. Why not? I want to know. I'd like to wring your neck but I love you too much. I'm going to be really mad if you don't graduate on time. Look at me. It's ridiculous not to graduate on time. For God's sake, graduate!"

For 27 years, Mikolasy has been entrancing, cajoling and sometimes shaming her students into doing the sort of work she happens to know they're capable of.

"She doesn't take any crap from anybody, ever," says student Christy McCrory.

"I think she uses fear more constructively than any other teacher I have ever met," said Karen Ward, McCrory's best friend. "You're afraid of disappointing her. She brainwashes you to the point where you are afraid to let her down."

Mikolasy, as she is known to her students, is strict. If you blow your assignment deadline, you're done - zero points. If you hand in a "D" paper, you must rewrite it, several times if necessary, until Mikolasy says it's worth at least a "B."

"They know when they come in my room - they know I have high standards, that I'm passionate, that I'm consistent," she says.

But Mikolasy isn't mean. She does what she does because that's what her kids need: "They want direction. They want to know where they stand. How we feel," she says. "They need to know they can achieve and that they have value."

So she tells them often that she loves them, that they're brilliant poets, and wonderful human beings, that they're honest and funny and that their tap dance was "to die for."

Mikolasy teaches English and social studies at Shorecrest High School. She has students keep journals and do projects about themselves. When it's parent-conference time, she requires her students to lead the discussion, showing their parents their writing, what they've learned and what it means.

"I've had some kids say, `But I'm not talking to my parents.' I said, `Bring them.' "

They bring them.

"We're all in awe of her," says Susan Derse, Shorecrest principal. "She just danced at a school assembly today. She really doesn't care how she looks. `Be here now.' That describes Mikolasy." - Nancy Montgomery

LAURIE GRECO EASTSIDE CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL BELLEVUE

Last fall, three classes of seniors studied DNA fragments from a Costa Rican family's white blood cells; it was part of an effort to analyze the genetic sequence for deafness. For that experience, they can thank Laurie Greco.

Eastside Catholic participates in the High School Human Genome Project, in cooperation with the University of Washington. Greco obtained the white blood cells and material for other DNA inquiries through professional scientists.

Greco, with a biology degree from Notre Dame, chose to take a master's in teaching rather than seek her fortune in the biotechnology industry. She prefers cultivating young minds.

"It's more rewarding to open their eyes to all there is in biology, rather than focus on one aspect of biology and spend my whole life doing that one thing," she said.

This month, students have infected tomato plants with a virus to look for toxic effects. They study photosynthesis and respiration by placing pond snails, plants, and water in test tubes around the room.

Students flock to her classes despite a cramped room where desks double as lab tables. Greco spends a typical lab session scrambling among experiment sites, eager to know what each student's findings are.

"You can just tell she loves to teach," said sophomore Rahim Tufts.

In addition to her advanced classes, Greco insisted that she be allowed to offer a class called "conceptual biology" for lower-level students.

A student pays this tribute: "As adults, her students will be working actively on breakthroughs in biology, aging and health because she got them hooked on science in the 10th grade." - Mike Lindblom

MARY ANN YAMAGUCHI Evergreen High School Seattle (Highline School District)

Mary Ann Yamaguchi knows many of her students long before they ever enter her Evergreen High School classes. Sometimes she even knows their brothers and sisters, and their cousins and parents.

After school, Yamaguchi works with children at an "apartment school," a volunteer program that offers tutoring to students who live in public-housing complexes and are at risk of falling behind academically. The program operates out of an apartment near their homes.

Twice a week Yamaguchi leaves her vocational classes at Evergreen to round up younger students for the program at the Juanita Apartments, a nearby complex notorious for high crime.

"Because I come into a place that really is their home, I have the opportunity to see children in an extended way," Yamaguchi said. "I get to know their cousins or brothers. In some ways I know them as an extended family."

When these children get to high school, they see a familiar face. That's important for students looking for an adult to turn to when faced with a tough teenage life, said Yamaguchi, who has been at Evergreen for four years.

"Many of my students come from low-income families," she said. "By their junior and senior years they are working to support their families."

"She takes the kids who are hardest to work with and helps them recognize their own ability to achieve," said Bonnie Bailey, a teacher who works with Yamaguchi at the Juanita apartment-school site. "She gives heavy doses of praise and demands that the kids stretch their thinking skills and begin to believe in themselves."

Yamaguchi, a teacher for 25 years, urges students to become involved in community-service projects to beef up their resumes. Some of her students have to care for younger siblings, or even their own children, so she focuses her child-care classes on proper nutrition and discipline techniques.

Once a week, her students take care of preschool children in the classroom. Students in two of her classes have "kindergarten buddies" in a program that matches older and younger students. Some of her students help to tutor younger children at the apartment school.

"Kids at my school are very kind," Yamaguchi said. "Given an opportunity, they almost always rise to the occasion and do incredible things." - Dionne Searcey

DEAN BRINK ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOL SEATTLE

He estimates he's taught more than 5,500 students since he started at Roosevelt High School in 1961 - and it's those students, says Dean Brink, who have kept him in the profession.

Brink, who has taught in the same classroom for 30 of those years, teaches advanced-placement U.S. history and American studies.

"I've been remarkably blessed by having stimulating, challenging students," said the Montana native.

"That interaction has kept me here. We're all learners. Even though I have age, we're fellow scholars."

"Mr. Brink is one of those teachers that makes you analyze things. We're not just memorizing dates and figures. He really makes you think," said David Fine, a junior in Brink's advanced-placement U.S. history class.

"He really focuses on class discussion. That keeps everyone really interested. Plus, he's a funny guy."

Brink tries to bring history to life for his students by looking at the past through the people who lived during that time.

"That's what makes history come alive for me, so I figure, that's what makes it come alive for my students," he said.

Brink has his students read diary entries, journals and newspaper articles and biographies to give them a more realistic look into history and to counter the sometimes colorless textbooks.

"If we just rely on text materials, that's not the most engaging way to teach history," he said. "People are turned off by text. The experience of people at the time makes it much more interesting."

Brink encourages his students to be skeptics and think critically about current and historical events, rather than simply accepting information they read in textbooks or newspapers as gospel.

"He really teaches it like a college-level class," said Rachel Kort, another junior. "He uses it to prepare us. He shows he cares about his students. If kids are having problems, he talk to them about it."

Gina Williams, a junior whose mother had Brink for a teacher when she went to Roosevelt in the 1970s, agrees. "He's been around so long and seen so many different types of students that he really identifies with us." - Tamra Fitzpatrick

JOE DOCKERY CHIEF KANIM MIDDLE SCHOOL FALL CITY

Each weekday at 7 a.m., Chief Kanim's video-production club assembles a videotape of the day's news and announcements for "Hawk TV," broadcast on televisions throughout the school.

"They have 40 minutes to make a 10-minute show, and they really have to live by the deadline they're on. They have to work together as a team," said Joe Dockery, their energetic young teacher.

Three years ago, the program didn't exist - and without Dockery's initiative, it wouldn't exist now in anywhere near the same quality, according to Principal Scott Poirier.

To build up a video lab, Dockery bought equipment from pawnshops and garage sales, earning the nickname "Dumpster Diver." In one case, he found a $900 video printing machine for $150 because someone who mistook it for a compact-disc player had jammed it with a CD, and decided to get rid of it. Students still use ancient Commodore monitors to preview the daily news show. Dockery also has a growing arsenal of new and donated equipment, including a machine that writes the students' credit lines and other text onto videotape.

Some students have learned to create classroom presentations with multimedia software. Last week, a boy prepared a video on Pakistan with pictures off the Internet.

The video club used its talents last year to encourage toy donations for the Union Gospel Mission and Snoqualmie Valley families. Students occasionally give video presentations to adults' service clubs.

Dockery, in his seventh year, teaches math, science, drawing and cartooning as well as video production. His efforts have helped Chief Kanim win national recognition, including a Blue Ribbon School award last year and a profile in Videomaker magazine, Poirier said.

Seventh-grader Patrick Reilly, one of the top video students, said Dockery also has a gift for clearly explaining tough math concepts such as rounding off numbers, even when textbooks fail.

Terri Reilly, Patrick's mom, said Dockery's passion for technology has made him a mentor to several students, including her son. His other strengths include the ability to attract technology grants and his willingness to help students before and after school.

Technology has brought excitement to many students who tire of traditional pencil-and-paper instruction, Dockery said. He knows, because he used to be one of them. - Mike Lindblom

RUTH BALF WING LUKE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SEATTLE

It's time for botany in Ruth Balf's combination 3rd-4th-5th-grade class. Bouquets of honey locust, kale, and chives fill Dixie cups on the center of each cluster of desks. Students, some standing on their tiptoes, look, touch and even taste the flowers.

"Ms. Balf, there's a bug on one of mine," said a student.

"Good, let's figure out what kind of bug that is," Balf said. "Is anyone else lucky enough to have a bug or two on their flowers? Those of you who don't can take a field trip over to Table 4's desk to check it out."

The students draw their bouquets, labeling each flower and insect, then they dissect the flower, looking for anthers, stigmas, petals and pollen.

"She has a great way of figuring out how kids' minds work," said Debbie Clement, a teacher at Wing Luke. "She gets kids to think. She's very innovative and creative with her teaching methods."

Balf, who was born in Scotland and grew up in British Columbia, has been teaching for eight years.

"Some people try to change the world doing huge projects. I picked working with 30 kids as the place where I'm trying to change the world," she said.

Balf said she uses modeling as a teaching technique. "I show the students what I expect of them, and hold them accountable to that."

Ellen Punyon, her principal, said many students enter Balf's classroom with low self-esteem and discipline issues - and leave with stronger academics, positive feelings about their abilities and fewer behavioral problems.

Each year in her class, her students follow the Iditarod, integrating language arts, science, math and geography. The children adopt a musher, write a biography about their musher, follow the race, graph the results and work together to re-enact the Iditarod on a course around the school.

"She has a great way of involving the kids," said Dan Louie, drug-and-alcohol-intervention specialist at Wing Luke. "She does lots of hands on stuff. There's not a lot of time being bored." - Tamra Fitzpatrick

BRAD PROFFITT MADRONA SCHOOL EDMONDS

For years, Brad Proffitt was depressed in his job as a military police officer. "You don't get called to weddings and birthdays," he remembers. "You get called to domestic violence."

So Proffitt got out of the Air Force, got a degree in microbiology thinking he might go into research, started student-teaching on a lark - and found himself.

"Here in the classroom you see all the good stuff," Proffitt says.

Proffitt, 35, is just finishing his second year of teaching, at Madrona School in Edmonds.

But it's been quite a year - in large part, Proffitt's colleagues say, due to his science projects, conceived and executed on the grandest scale.

"We always talk about this: We think he's almost a visionary," said Linda Lee, one of Proffitt's teaching partners. "He brings in this `anything is possible' mentality, and all these great ideas. When you propose an idea, he takes it beyond."

Proffitt, who teaches first- through third-year students at this K-8 school, built a telescope for the class. "We took it out and we were able to see the craters on the moon, it's so powerful," Lee said.

He also designed and built a planetarium on the ceiling of the classroom.

"All the kids lie on their backs and we've been talking about the Greek and Roman myths, and how the constellations got their names," Proffitt said. "Then the kids come up with their own myths."

But the main event this year was Proffitt's paleontology lesson - the one that involved him building life-size models of skeletons of a tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptor, then burying them three feet deep in a field near his home in Woodinville. "He used a backhoe!" Lee said.

Around each site, 24 kids gathered, tools and notebooks to record their findings, at the ready.

"I'd say it took them about five hours to get them out of the ground," Proffitt said.

Proffitt may have come late to teaching science, but he has strong theories about the best way to do it.

"My philosophy about science is that it really has to be authentic," he says. "They have to have experiences they can take with them, so they'll be really interested in taking those chemistry and biology classes later on."

And he loves planning his next project. "I lay in bed awake at night and think, `We're going to do this. . . . But I don't know how we're going to do it - yet.' " - Nancy Montgomery

CHUCK ACCETTURO NAUTILUS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FEDERAL WAY

Two years ago, Chuck Accetturo nearly called it quits after a long career as a teacher. He'd had enough of the hours, the high expectations, the overall monotony of 25 years in the same career.

"I was ready to hang it all up," said Accetturo, 50, a teacher at Nautilus Elementary in Federal Way. "It was getting to the point where everybody's just dumping everything on teachers right now. I've just been working my tail off the last few years."

But then last year, he won a grant offered by the district to implement technology in the classroom - and everything turned around.

He used the money to buy 30 second-hand computers for his classroom. He researched and set up computer-based learning programs. He solicited ideas from other teachers and parents.

"When the kids got on the computers for only 45 minutes a week, I saw how well they were doing and how they just enjoyed it," Accetturo said. "They just went crazy over it."

Accetturo fed off their energy, helping the children learn more about trouble-shooting computer problems, and teaching them about the Internet. He sought out computerized curriculum that could help them with basic subjects such as math, reading and language. He has children search the Web for world events and breaking news. He created a program for his sixth-graders to pass along computer skills to second- and fourth-graders.

"When they get motivated and work so hard, of course I get motivated to get them more involved," he said. "It just invigorates you and makes you want to teach."

Everyone, including the principal who nominated him for this award, noticed Accetturo's change of attitude, citing him as having turned into one of the most energetic teachers in the school.

"Chuck is the most inspirational teacher on board and will spend unlimited hours to share his enthusiasm for technology with staff, parents and students," wrote Principal Larry Davis. "His remarkable turn-around from a tired experienced teacher to a cutting-edge veteran continues to inspire us all." - Dionne Searcey

TIM RHOADES CRYSTAL SPRINGS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BOTHELL

Washington's public-education leaders and corporate executives say they wish for a generation of students who can use math to solve real-world problems. Tim Rhoades is producing those students - by bringing those problems into his fifth-grade class.

In last fall's Real Math unit, he gathered students into "families" who picked random cards to obtain spouses, jobs, wages, health care, and children. They calculated budgets using dollar figures from the classified ads.

"They saw quickly that what seemed like a good job - working at McDonald's - was not going to work," he said. "For a lot of families, it was cheaper for somebody to stay at home than pay for day care." Some became jealous of "couples" making $70,000, with no children, who took trips to Maui. In past years, a few game-players have tried to sell their "kids," though to do so eliminates a tax deduction.

"One of the girls actually offered to give her mom back some of her allowance because she realized how much she cost her family. They saw the responsibility," Rhoades said. "Your parents do a lot of stuff for you that you don't realize."

Rhoades has also taught business, art, and counting skills by having students make and sell towel holders as a fund-raiser for Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle.

He says he likes elementary teaching because the curriculum is flexible and he can teach more than one subject. A similar impulse explains his creative math lessons. "I basically get bored easily," he said. "If I get bored, kids get bored."

That doesn't seem to happen very much with Rhoades' students.

"His generosity with his time and ideas is amazing, from playing sports with the children during recess to sharing his curriculum with anyone who asks," said Judith Robison-Katopodis, whose son is in the class.

"When he feels a child is in need he will risk being reproached by asking parents about their home. Teaching is not what he does, it is who he is, and he epitomizes excellence." - Mike Lindblom -------------------------------

So what does an outstanding teacher do with a little extra money? This is a busy time of year for teachers, but we were able to track down three of the four high-school teachers we honored last year; here's what we learned about how they used the $500 they each received for their classrooms.

-- Lane Loland, a former attorney, is a history teacher at Shorecrest High School whose students admire him for the way he "connects facts from yesterday to today," as one of them put it. He used his award money to buy resource materials, including a historical atlas and other reference books for his advanced placement U.S. history classes.

-- Rick Nagel, a law-and-society teacher at Franklin High School, said last year he has a "very simple" philosophy about teaching his students: "I try to get them to think." He rarely uses textbooks in lower-level classes and never uses them in upper-level classes; pulling together his own materials provides far more stimulating classes, he believes, and he used his $500 to stock up with materials and reference books on famous cases and conducting trials.

-- Veronica Cook, a special-education teacher at Shorewood High School, brings learning alive for students struggling with conditions that damage the brain and ravage the body. She used her award money to buy supplies for her classroom.

- Tamra Fitzpatrick