Grace Gustafson
She took one look at the wooden map and cringed.
Australia was upside down.
After being spoken to as if she didn’t speak English, and then seeing the horrible abomination of her country upside down, Amanda Gilmore decided that Marian High School was not the school for her back in the early ’80s.
Gilmore then returned to her right-side up country to finish the rest of her schooling at a boarding school. There she vowed to herself that she would never be like the teachers that always stayed “inside the box.”
She wanted to be different, and different she was.
As one gazes around her classroom in the Deer Ridge neighborhood in Omaha, they would notice that everything is colorful.
Everything is themed.
There is no shortage of bright posters lining her walls of tips and tricks for first graders to use.
Legos™ upon Wizard of Oz upon Legos™.
There is nothing that would suggest she didn’t keep that promise to herself.
Photo by Grace Gustafson
As a first grade teacher at Columbian Elementary School, and now a holder of the Buffet Award, Gilmore is making an impact on every single child who comes in and out of her classroom. “I love to keep in touch with my little friends and see what they are doing. I have had many kiddos return as the mother or father of the child that I have in my classroom, so that’s very exciting,” she said.
Gilmore, a teacher of 28 years, said she believes that different students respond differently with teachers, and that it is the teacher’s expectations for each child and the overall school expectations that can make a child really learn and grow in her classroom.
Her motivation?
Seeing their little faces every day and knowing that she can make a difference in their lives if she can motivate them to learn and participate in her classroom.
Gilmore says the best thing that you can get out of teaching is how rewarding it is. She enjoys teaching because it’s enjoyable, fun and she loves that she is able to watch the children grow from non-readers to readers over the course of a year.
Everyone has someone who has inspired and pushed them to be a better version of themselves.
Inspirational people can come in different shapes and sizes.
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