In the classroom with the teacher of the year

This second grade teacher, the child of Cuban immigrants, was named the district's “Teacher of the Year”. She has also taught a technique called "thinking maps" to every elementary teacher in the district. This tool has helped all the teachers and students. DP

Profile in Education

by Mark McDermott

It’s 9 a.m. in Room 18 at Jefferson Elementary School, and second grade teacher Kathy Melsh is practicing her omniscience.
Technically, Ms. Melsh is sitting down with one student at a time and going over their Halloween ghost stories.

“Who’s been in my house?” one student has written, just before her protagonist finds out: “Then he saw the spooky, scary, slimly monster!” Ms. Melsh leans over the table she and the little girl share, close to the student’s looping second grade scrawl, correcting grammar — “floted back” to “floated back” – quizzing her about question marks versus exclamation points, and then finally pronouncing the story “very scary stuff!” The girl beams.

But throughout her one-on-one time with each student, Melsh somehow keeps a laser-beam focus on all 20 students in the room. When one boy seems to be trying to fly, she fixes a stern look at him and he freezes, hands in midair. “Christopher, love!” she says, and that’s all it takes – he begins writing again. Another boy temporarily lies on the floor. “Christian, love! Do you need to come sit next to me?” Soon, he too is back at work.

Ms. Melsh has become semi-famous among her students for this eerily broad yet specific attention span.
“Sometimes it kind of freaks them out,” she said after class. “You have to be on your toes at all times. If you miss one thing, it can cause chaos.”
And it’s not an easy trick to master. “She leaves school exhausted every day, I’m sure,” said Principal Stephen Edmunds.

Within Redondo Beach Unified School District, Melsh’s ability to reach each student has won another kind of attention. District leadership named Melsh “Teacher of the Year” earlier this month, both as recognition for her work in her own classroom as well as the impact she has had district-wide.

Melsh, who is 28, last year trained every elementary teacher in the district a new teaching technique called “thinking maps,” a graphic organizing tool that students at all grade levels can use to help order their thoughts. Melsh, along with district English Language Development specialist Courtney Baker, learned about the tool and how to implement it in teaching at a seminar they attended and then brought “thinking maps” to RBUSD.
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