Top Teacher: Hoffman Estates educator makes learning a 'two-way street'
Alessandra Kennedy has no business singing Sia.
Unlike the pop singer known for performing with her face hidden under a wig or while facing a wall, Kennedy can't actually carry a tune … at all.
But that isn't what matters in this moment before school, working with a former student to prepare for the variety show. When Kennedy belts out Sia's cover of "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" from the musical "Annie," there's more to it than providing some musical entertainment.
At this moment, she's found a way to distract her former student from her shyness, to think beyond herself and feel some empathy for, well, Kennedy's bad singing.
Their morning duets help ease the way for the shy sixth-grader to take the stage, alone, to perform the song in front of the whole student body at the school variety show. And she nails it.
As a fifth-grade teacher at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Hoffman Estates, Kennedy is always looking for ways to seize on a teachable moment. And those moments pay dividends to both her and her students.
"To see her up there just performing and shining … it just makes you so happy," Kennedy said.
Kennedy has organized the entire show, from judging auditions to choreographing a dance, to a kid-friendly version of "Uptown Funk" for fellow teachers. Ahead of an evening performance of the variety show before parents, she reflects on the last year.
"You just want to give them more than you can," she said of her students.
Kennedy does that and more, her co-workers and students say.
She's spontaneous and compassionate. She's dyed her hair bright orange and dressed up as a scarecrow. For a laugh, sure, but also to break down the barrier between teacher and student, between adult and child.
If she does get frustrated, she's quickly over it "and attacking something else," said Mary Beth Landerman, who mentored Kennedy, then new to Thomas Jefferson, almost 20 years ago.
"We all have a lot on our plates, and then there's Alessandra," Landerman said of this month's choice for the Daily Herald's Top Teacher, a recognition of the suburb's top educators.
From Brazil to Hoffman Estates
As a kid, the daughter of a lawyer dad and stay-at-home mom, Kennedy invited neighborhood friends over to her house, where she taught them lessons, sometimes English, in the front yard. The native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, says she "always made it fun."
There was a brief stint as a journalist before she moved to the United States. She eventually arrived at Thomas Jefferson in 1997 with "ideas galore" and the same enthusiasm she has today, Landerman said.
To hear her explain the job, Kennedy still sounds like the neighborhood teacher in Brazil.
"I think teachers should invest in making learning fun for kids," she said.
Wait. Fun? The big, bad word? Who has time for fun? What about standards and benchmarks and rigor?
Kennedy's students don't goof off. She's not their best friend. But hers is a nurturing classroom where fifth-graders ask for help and "put it out there and do their best learning," said Landerman, who runs the school's student council with Kennedy.
Landerman gives this example: Every morning, one class leads the Pledge of Allegiance over the intercom for a week. Then that Friday, those students typically dance around in their classroom.
Kennedy's routine?
"Hers are acted out. They're productions," Landerman said. "She did 'A Hard Knock Life' (again, from the musical "Annie") with her kids one year, and they put her in a trash can. It's always something. It's just constant involvement.
"And some people will say, 'Well, isn't that taking away from the teaching?'" Landerman continues. "But it's not because it's the community building."
Community in the classroom
Kennedy builds that community first, with specific "agreements."
She tells students at the start of school in August to encourage each other, to celebrate their differences, to give it their all and do their best work. They should be good listeners, not just with her, but with their classmates.
This year's class was an added challenge because of its size - 30 kids, ages 10 and 11 - and a transfer student new to the school.
So Kennedy put an emphasis on inclusion, sometimes discretely. She told them to picture her in the teachers' lounge without any friends.
"At the end of the day, if the kids don't walk out of the building every day feeling good about themselves and feeling good about who they are, it doesn't matter all the math that they learn, all the reading and the writing," Kennedy said.
That transfer student, Nyla Jones, at first quiet, now fits "in beautifully," Kennedy said. So much so that Nyla was named a "quality student of the month," a title given to a boy and girl who exemplify the agreements made at the start of the school year.
"This is great evidence of how highly your peers think of you," Kennedy wrote next to messages from students and a picture of Nyla that hang along with the other winners in the front of the class.
Kennedy doesn't choose who gets the honor. She leaves that to students who vote. It's no popularity contest.
"It kind of takes me off the hook for electing that child, but many times it's exactly who I would choose," Kennedy said.
Nyla equates Kennedy with family.
"She doesn't teach us like regular teachers," the 10-year-old from Hoffman Estates said. "We're her own, like, children. She loves us."
Her teaching can be loud and dramatic. Caden Statz, 11, said that style helps her lessons stick.
"What I really like about Mrs. Kennedy is she's just really wacky," he said. "But it's like a good wacky."
Kennedy kids
Landerman dubs her students "Kennedy kids."
"Once you're a Kennedy kid, you're a Kennedy kid for life," Landerman said.
She and Principal Larry Sasso point to former students at Fremd High School in Palatine who are interested in careers in education. They apply for internships at Thomas Jefferson and specifically ask to get assigned to Kennedy.
"Every year, they come back and want to work with her because they knew the environment she creates," Lasso said.
It's not a traditional classroom, the principal said.
"The learning is a two-way street," Lasso said. "It's not 'My job to impart knowledge on you.' It's 'We're going to do this together.'"
Kennedy clearly breaks with tradition when she turns over the reins of the class.
Her students step in front of the camera to record instructional videos on iPads played back to the class. Kennedy and a third-grade teacher help train "TJ's Techies," a team of students who explain iPad apps or troubleshoot other tech issues for both adults and kids.
Kennedy concedes it isn't easy relinquishing control. But she's preparing them for jobs in the distant future. And while she doesn't know what those jobs will be, she does know that she can encourage kids to be problem solvers and good communicators.
"Our role has changed in a way that you can't be looked as the sole proprietor of knowledge," Kennedy said. "You have to give kids their space."
Before school's out for summer, Kennedy will give each student a DVD filled with pictures from the school year.
For Mother's Day, Kennedy, constantly with her camera, produced a class video sent to moms. For her students, there will likely be pictures of them and their families packing meals at Feed My Starving Children in Schaumburg, or from when they did random acts of kindness, part of a yearlong campaign against bullying.
Through tears, Kennedy said she doesn't want to "say goodbye" to her students when school ends for summer later this week.
"It's a great honor to be part of their lives," she says.
Curriculum vitae
Residence: Carpentersville
Age: 42 Occupation: Fifth-grade teacher at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Hoffman Estates
Education: Bachelor's degree in elementary education and master's degree in curriculum and instruction from Northern Illinois University
Activities: Co-sponsor of student council, which organized "Pennies for Patients," raising more than $4,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; sponsor of schoolwide variety show
Awards: Golden Apple finalist