Her mother knew she’d be a teacher
Published: June 18, 2005
Stratford’s new Teacher of the Year said she didn’t know she would be a teacher until she was in college, but her teacher and her mother did.
Tracy Andersen has an old picture on her desk taken by her third grade teacher at St. Joseph’s School in New Britain, of the future seventh grade science teacher at the classroom blackboard. The teacher gave the picture to her mother and said it foreshadowed her career.
“My mother said she always knew I’d be a teacher,” she said as her sixth period class at Wooster Middle School worked diligently on a reading assignment. They were remarkably well behaved for seventh graders who had just come from lunch.
Andersen said as a young child she had an early interest in science.
She has a memory of herself at age 5 collecting worms, bringing them into her room and dissecting them under her microscope.
She credits her mother, a pharmacy technician, with giving her the science bug, buying her the microscope and encouraging her to explore the wonders of nature.
The diminutive teacher, shorter than most of her students, attended Springfield College in Massachusetts for her Bachelor of Science degree in biochemical technology, and had intended to pursue a career as a scientist.
“I was going down the science route,” she said. Then she took a summer job at a YMCA summer camp and discovered how much she loved working with children.
After a year teaching at Dunbar School in Bridgeport, she came to Wooster in 1998, and now is a vital part of the school’s educational team.
Wooster Principal Linda Paslov said Andersen is the leader of the school’s Beginning Educator Support Team, composed of experienced educators who serve as professional mentors for first-year teachers.
Andersen also heads up the district-wide teacher committee that developed the new science curriculum for grades 6-8, part of the comprehensive revision of the science curriculum to prepare for the addition of science on the state’s standardized tests in 2007.
But those weren’t the reasons that Paslov nominated Andersen for the annual Teacher of the Year honor. The principal said it was only her second year at Wooster, and she is still getting to know the school’s teachers. “It had to be someone who really stands out,” she explained.
Andersen does that. She is energetic, caring, resourceful, creative, and always seems to be at the school.
Paslov said Andersen never loses her temper with the students. She started a homework club after school for students who needed a quiet place to do their homework, and she also leads the student science club.
The principal said she heard that Andersen moved into Stratford just around the corner from Wooster so that she could spend more time at dances and other school events.
The award was “hush-hush” until it was announced last Thursday. Andersen, the leader of the seventh grade Panther Team, was told to bring the Panther students to the auditorium for a scolding on their behavior and the dress code.
The principal waited until the last moment to invite Andersen’s husband, Scott, for fear he would spill the beans. Instead of scolding the students, Paslov announced the award, the students cheered, and Scott Andersen strode in with a bouquet of flowers and balloons.
Andersen got choked up and told the students, “I get up every morning for you.”
The new Teacher of the Year attributed much of her success to demonstrating to the students that she cares about them personally. She even designs lessons that help the boys and girls feel good about themselves while they learn science.
Recently she assigned a project about the environment that let her students do what they were good at. Those who liked poetry wrote poems about the environment, and those who like board games made a board game about the environment.
Amazon discount!The diversity of projects taught the students another lesson, too. “When they do this they teach each other that there’s different approaches to learning,” Andersen said.
The middle school grades are known as tough ones for teachers, when the students acquire more distractions but don’t have the maturity to manage them, but Andersen said she prefers teaching those grades.
“My goal is to make sure each one of them succeeds,” she said.
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