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Mrs. Bonnie Stevens
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Mann Elementary School
Hometown:
Lacey, WA
Class Information:
Room Number: Library
Students per Class: 420
Class Description:
School Library serving 20 classrooms and one headstart and one preschool classroom.
Position:
Librarian
Needs:
We need the nominated Washington Children Choice Award Bks and the Sasquatch Award nominated books for 2011. We also have no digital cameras in our building or even an old video camera. It would be so beneficial to our students to be able to use these tools along with our building set of laptops to create and explore reading comboined with technology.
Personal Information:
Why Do I Teach?:
I went back to school to become a teacher when I found myself divorced with six small daughters. I had no education or job skills and needed to go into a field which would allow me to have summers off with my girls. Little did I know that I would fall in love with the kids that I came in contract with. There is nothing better in this world than to be part of someone's learning; to watch their eyes light up when they understand some theory or idea or can identify their letters and sounds. Each age/grade has it's own challenges and targets they need to learn, but somewhere along the way, I found that I became the student. Kids can teach us so much if we will only open our eyes and hearts and let them. Lizzie was one of those special students who taught me more than I taught her. She had a skin disease that was very painful and when touched caused blisters. Many times she came to school bangaged from head to foot. She was always kind to everyone, never complained that kids stared and teased her and helped everyone in our class. She used her intelligence to make our classroom a better place. Then there was Kenny. His family came from Cambodia and his mama lost her job the year he was in my class. She told me that they went to the grocery store to spend the last five dollars they had. When she got to the cash register to pay, she found a $50.00 bill in her purse beside the $5.00. Kenny had quietly put his life savings into his mom's purse without saying anything. He told her that it was his gift to her. He was only eight years old. How can I not want to be part of these awesome childrens' lives. Six years ago I got the opportunity to become a school librarian. I went back to school and earned my library media certification and now teach in Tacoma, WA., in an inner city school with 75% free and reduced lunch. Just as all public school budgets have been reduced over the past few years, my district no longer supports the libraries with funding. New books feel like a thing of the past. How do we, as a society, teach our children to love to read when there is no money being spent to get the best printed material in their hands? The classics are not enough in todays libraries. So now I teach 420 students about the OPAC (catalog), computer skills, how to use the library and try to install the love of reading into each student through reading as much as I can get my hands on and then sharing the good stuff with my students. There is not a better professional in all the world than being a teacher.