By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Nichole Simonis’ fourth grade class gave her some well intended advice as she prepared for speaking publicly. Don’t pick your nose. Wear makeup and put on nice clothes. Don’t wear the glasses that make your eyes weird.
But some of the student suggestions seemed less constructive, like tips on talking about Mario, thinking about candy and not looking at anyone. But they were appreciated just the same.
Simonis, who was recognized by the Bowling Green Kiwanis Thursday as an inspirational educator, explained that her typical audience is made up of 9-year-olds. She sprinkles her lessons with occasional fart jokes, and is a bit rusty with adults, she warned.
In her eight years at Conneaut Elementary School, Simonis has taught fourth and fifth graders about science, reading, writing and grammar – tackling the problematic issue of when to use “who” and “whom.”
“It’s hard to believe that about 600 delightful children have walked through my doors,” she said. “It is also thanks to them showing me that learning doesn’t stop when you become a teacher that I stand before you today.”
Simonis talked about teaching fourth grade as equal parts rewarding and challenging.
“Teaching fourth graders isn’t for the faint of heart,” she said. “You have to know how to take a joke, roll with the punches and laugh at yourself.”
She works to inspire students to keep at it – even when the answers don’t come easily.
“My kids need to know they can move mountains, and I will be there the entire time, cheering them on,” she said. “But they also need to know how to fall and get back up.”
Simonis also showered praise on her “best, brightest and most creative colleagues,” who have celebrated her good days and picked her up on the bad days.
“They are the family I didn’t know I needed,” she said.
No matter how well they prepare, Simonis said, teachers cannot be ready for all the challenges that come their way.
“I have given up my shoes for a kid who played so hard in physical education they’d blown theirs out. I have dodged being shot with a paintball gun in the name of science,” she said. “I have carried a kid with a broken ankle across uneven ground because her knee scooter wouldn’t work and she couldn’t miss the staff vs students volleyball game. I have tucked kids into bed at camp and read them good night stories to make them feel at home.”
Teaching online was particularly challenging when walking students through performing science experiments at home. “Boy, do I have stories for you,” she said.
Being a teacher doesn’t stop at writing lesson plans and pulling out books to read, she explained.
“Being a teacher is the understanding that you now have 45 jobs, but are only being paid for one,” Simonis said.
“I have braided hair, provided clothes, paid off lunch debts, been a sounding board for the overwhelmed, and laid on the floor to help calm the overstimulated.”
Her students have led to her doing “crazy things,” like adopting a cow, wearing a roll of toilet paper all day, translating French letters from pen pals (despite not being able to speak French), dressing up like Superintendent Francis Scruci, and reading stories about kids who think they have broken bottoms since they discovered cracks in the back.
“I promise you – amongst all of that, there is learning taking place,” Simonis said.
Simonis put up a slide defining the skills needed for good teachers.
“Teaching seems to require the sort of skills one would need to pilot a bus full of live chickens backwards, with no brakes, down a rocky road through the Andes, while simultaneously providing colorful and informative commentary on the scenery.”
But Simonis took it a step further. Today’s teachers also have to be prepared for classes to be assessed by the state.
Learning in Simonis’ classroom doesn’t take place with students at their desks, in perfect lines, attentively nodding their heads approvingly.
“Learning in my classroom happens in groups and with students talking, and using one another to help their understanding,” she said.
Simonis stresses to students that they are safe to make mistakes in her classroom.
“We will try again, we will try together. We will learn differently if we have to – but we will learn.”
Though being recognized for being an inspirational educator, Simonis said she is inspired by those around her, including her principal Alyssa Karaffa.
“The students, the staff, and this community is what keeps me going, what gives me hope, and encourages me to hold on for the day in which all students get everything they could possibly need,” Simonis said.
The other Bowling Green teachers being recognized this month by the Kiwanis are:
- Laura Johns on Feb. 9. Johns is an eighth grade mathematics teacher at Bowling Green Middle School, where she has taught for 18 years.
- Melissa Hemminger on Feb. 16. Hemminger teaches kindergartners at Crim Elementary School. She is in her 14th year of teaching, having also taught at Milton Elementary and Kenwood Elementary.
- Jeff Nichols on Feb. 23. Nichols is a social studies and government teacher at Bowling Green High School. He is also president of the Bowling Green Education Association.
