3rd-quality teacher Heather Slisher has always been regarded to go the further mile for her learners at Taylor Road Elementary School.
In mid-April, for instance—amid the annual crush of point out and district math and reading assessments—Slisher invited Ohio State University women’s hockey participant Emma Maltais to communicate to her pupils. Maltais, who gained a gold medal in Beijing as a member of the Canadian Olympic staff, wished students luck on their assessments and talked about perseverance, functioning tricky in faculty and her encounters in the Olympics, Slisher claims.
Heading the more mile and arranging these kinds of visits is among the matters Slisher has completed more than the several years to make Taylor Highway “a excellent area,” suggests Principal Jamie Johnson.
In recognition of her perform in the classroom, Slisher was named the elementary school winner in the 2022 Columbus Mum or dad/ThisWeek Community News Teachers of the Year awards. “I’m quite stunned,” she states. “I’m incredibly honored.”
Melissa Contreras was a single of two mom and dad who nominated Slisher. Her son, Easton, was in Slisher’s class past university year. “She was just absolutely wonderful,” Contreras claims. “She took the extra time with my son to not only have an understanding of his desires from an academic viewpoint, but also from a social perspective. … She took that more time to make absolutely sure he was on track and just truly helped him to improve as a particular person, the two inside of and outside the house of college.”
Beyond educating the fundamental third-grade subjects, Slisher says she stresses the worth of developing superior character. Just one of the focal points is to educate students to be “a dilemma solver, not a challenge creator.”
“We definitely aim on striving to search at methods to be a very good challenge solver and be a great human,” she claims. “‘What can we do to make factors superior?’
“I concentrate a great deal in my classroom on believing in by themselves, that very little is unachievable. We don’t say the word ‘can’t’ in my room, [but instead emphasize] we just haven’t figured out it however.”
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Slisher, 49, has taught 3rd grade at Taylor Street for the past 8 years. She formerly taught at Knox Local community Elementary School in Knox, Indiana, for 10 yrs and at Troy Crossroads Elementary in Troy, Illinois, for 3 years.
She understood she preferred to be an educator from an early age. “It was one thing I always realized I wanted to do. I grew up in and all over schools. My grandfather was a principal of an elementary school, and my godmother and aunt all taught in an elementary setting up. So it was anything from the time I was very little that I usually wanted to do,” Slisher says.
The native of Orchard Park, New York, graduated from Ball Condition University in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary training. She lives in Reynoldsburg with her partner, Shaun, and their two sons, Aaron and Aiden, who just completed 11th and seventh grades, respectively.
She says her time at Taylor Highway has been particular. “Probably the proudest issue I have to say about becoming able to teach in Reynoldsburg is I get to educate at my community faculty,” Slisher states. “I reside in the community that my students appear to college in. So I get to be between them all the time, and I choose excellent delight in remaining ready to say I live and operate in the local community.”
Rohan Adhikari, a student in Slisher’s course, states his instructor is “awesome.”
“She’s actually cool and pleasurable to perform with,” he says. “She’s an awesome trainer.”
Adhikari states he enjoys the treats Slisher provides to course and the toys she presents for pupils to play with throughout recess. He also appreciates the movies at the conclusion of the class’s larger educational units.
College student Allison Heizer claims she actually likes the vocabulary functions Slisher makes and team assignments, these types of as one particular the class was operating on in April about sharks.
“I want learners to have the ideal probable practical experience when they are at faculty,” Slisher claims. “I bear in mind my instructors and the points I did as a young university student, and I want to give my learners that similar working experience. I want to give them that appreciate for learning, that drive to want to know much more, do additional and be extra.”
Stephen Borgna is a reporter with ThisWeek Neighborhood Information.
