Respect rules in Winfield teacher's first-grade classroom

Walk into a first-grade classroom and you might expect chaos — young kids running around, noise as they talk over each other, maybe a competition to get the teacher's attention.

None of that's the case in Sally Keith's room at Pleasant Hill Elementary in Winfield.

“Ears listening, voices quiet,” she says gently when the kids get too loud during an English lesson.

She motions to her ears, then puts one finger over her mouth and the kids follow suit, quickly becoming attentive again.

Keith's colleagues and students' parents agree it isn't easy to master such management and control of a classroom, especially one filled with 6- and 7-year-olds.

And to do so in a way that commands respect ­— not only for the teacher, but also for fellow classmates — and stays fun? That is truly a gift, they say, and Keith has been blessed with it.

“Her ability to connect with students is exceptional,” says Christine Frederick, principal of the Winfield school. “Every single time you walk into her room there's a high level of engagement.”

Laura Bellanca, a reading specialist who has worked with Keith for 15 years, says the 51-year-old is one of the most patient teachers she has ever met, and someone who can handle tough situations that might “put other teachers over the edge.”

“The ebb and flow of instruction in her classroom is seamless,” Bellanca says. “Transition time in primary classrooms can be crazy and she handles that with, I think, such calm and grace that (the students) just naturally follow along with her.”

It's just a few of the many reasons Keith has been named one of the suburbs' Top Teachers, a distinction the Daily Herald awards monthly to outstanding educators.

Keith prides herself in these abilities, but says a lot of it was learned over time.

“I think I was horrible at it my first years. When the kids talked loud, I would talk louder because you think that's the way to do it,” she says. “You wouldn't explicitly teach behavior and now all the behaviors, the lineup, the 'eyes looking, ears listening,' that's all been explicitly taught to them, and we retrain and practice.”

Keith believes that approach is especially important with students with attention disorders or who have “crazy, unstructured, uncontrolled” home lives.

“They need school to be a place where they feel safe, and they need to feel like there's a sense of control and they know what to expect,” she says. “I think viewing behavior as something that actually needs to be taught has really helped in the academic piece. I love it. It's kind of my thing.”

'Their classroom'

Keith has been sharing her days with first-graders at Pleasant Hill for 25 years now. It's an experience she says is “kind of like magic,” but she jokes that she doesn't know whether staying that long “makes me crazy or passionate.”

“I never really expected to be in the same grade level for as long as I have,” she says. “I like them. They just love to learn, and they worship the ground their teacher walks on without a lot of effort, so that's fun. They're still little enough that they are fun and they say really sweet things, but they're old enough that they can be somewhat independent over the course of their day.”

Take, for example, a short conversation she had with a student when the class came back from physical education the other day.

“Ms. Keith, is today March 3?” the girl asks.

“Yes,” Keith says, a questioning look forming on her face.

“OK, 'cause today is my dad's birthday, on March 3,” the student says before taking a seat.

It's one of the many simple moments in a day that makes Keith smile.

“Their stream of consciousness is a beautiful thing,” she says.

Keith's classroom is set up in a unique way. Perhaps most noticeable, at first, is the lack of desks.

She made the decision several years ago to use long tables instead, topped with boxes of shared pencils, scissors, markers and other supplies, because she believes it helps “build community.”

“Their desks can be so crammed with stuff,” she says. “It's easier for first-graders to organize things when they have slots and tubs and book boxes as opposed to cramming in their desks.”

Decorations on the walls include plenty of photos of the students and things they need to learn, written out by them.

“Back in the day it was all about the lovely bulletin boards. Now it's about putting up what the kids do,” she says. “It's really their classroom, it's not really mine.”

When she calls a student up and asks them to explain a drawing they did to reflect something they just read, she reminds all the kids to keep their eyes on their classmate.

“It's important because they can learn just as much from each other as they can from me,” she says.

Building community and respect among her students — and with their families — is something Keith spends a lot of time on at the beginning of each school year.

“My approach, initially, is less academic and more relational, building in the routines and structures that they need,” she says. “If you've done that, then the academic piece is easier.”

One way she tries to get to know parents is by asking them to write her a letter about their child at the start of the year instead of filling out a generic survey about their child's strengths and weaknesses, says Hillary Mann, whose two sons have had Keith as a teacher. That type of out-of-the-box thinking, Mann says, is noticed and appreciated by parents.

“From the beginning, she took a genuine interest in the kids — their personalities, what motivates them, their likes, their dislikes,” she says. “She takes time to really foster their interests and to see them as their own individual, not just, 'we're doing math and everyone needs to do the same thing.'”

Individual needs

Since she started teaching nearly three decades ago, Keith has seen education change significantly, to a point where now her students have much more ownership for their learning.

“There's also much more conversation,” she says. “I think the expectation for being able to talk about their own learning has really changed. Back in the day it was, if you know the answer, 'OK, great, good,' now it's 'Oh, you know the answer? How did you solve it? How can you prove it?'”

Keith has been quick to embrace the change. In fact, her colleagues say she was doing additional assessments and benchmarking activities, which are increasingly popular, long before they were required.

“It's much more fun to teach this way, to be honest,” Keith says. “It's much more relational and you find out a lot more about the students than you would normally.”

Common Core, she says, hasn't really impacted her classroom because it's “just the same thing that I was doing.”

“You still take the kids where they are and move them along to where they need to be,” she says. “If you're a good teacher … you concentrate on collecting information about where your kids are academically and emotionally and then use that to teach.”

While differential learning is a districtwide initiative, Frederick says Keith has really taken it upon herself to “dive right in” and take what she has been trained in “a step farther.”

“She taps in on what is truly important,” Bellanca says, adding that small-group and one-on-one activities are very popular in Keith's classroom. “She knows those kids really well as far as where they're functioning.”

Without causing anxiety, Keith regularly communicates the high level of expectations she has for her students. The tone she sets, Bellanca says, is that “learning is their job.”

“She will even say the word 'job' quite a bit,” she says. “It's constantly a thoughtful dialogue that she has with kids. I think she wants them to come to the realization of, 'This is what I should be doing, or if I'm not doing this I'm not doing my job.'”

The result, Bellanca says, is that the kids become really invested in their learning — so much so, that teachers from across the building and the district regularly visit her classroom to observe her teaching style.

“People are very drawn to her,” Bellanca says. “She really is a leader among the teachers in the building. They look up to her. They want her approval. They want her opinion.”

Silly moments

It's not all seriousness in Keith's classroom though. In fact, there's usually lots of smiles and laughter throughout the day.

The kids cheer when Keith puts on a cartoon video in the middle of her lesson. They all stand and do the “brain break moves” together, which involves some arm and leg movements that help them release cooped up energy.

A few days in particular stand out during the year in Keith's classroom too. Her favorite holiday is Groundhog's Day, so to celebrate, she brings in Groundhog's Day T-shirts and just about everybody on the staff wears one. She also has the kids do crafts related to the furry creature and sends them to neighboring classrooms to perform a “Groundhog's Reader Theater.”

In the spring, Keith hosts an event she calls the Poetry Coffee House, where kids write and memorize poems they read aloud to their parents, who stop in to listen and drink coffee.

“The kids are so pulled in, they don't realize they've been working on poems for the last three weeks,” Bellanca says. “Those are the types of things that truly, I think, make her classroom fun, and yet it's all learning-based — they just don't know it.”

While they all may seem like small lessons that won't matter years from now, Keith has a lasting impact on her students.

It shows in the email she recently received from a former student in her 20s who told Keith she learned a lot in her class and was sorry for not being a good listener. There was also the student Keith ran into at Target who excitedly brought her out to the parking lot to meet his fiance, who was waiting in the car.

Keith makes an effort to stay in touch, too, by writing congratulatory notes to the high school seniors she once taught. A few years ago, she decided to start inviting them back to the school, and the idea has grown into an annual breakfast shortly after graduation where the teens can reminisce with all their former Pleasant Hill teachers.

Aside from everything she does in the classroom, Keith also is known for her willingness to volunteer for school committees; her regular attendance at after-school events and activities; and her organization of a Christmas sharing program that benefits families at a low-income apartment complex.

Her lightheartedness and love for fun shines every Friday, too. It's the day she makes up a song and sings it over the intercom to her co-workers before students begin to arrive.

“She's all about boosting morale and self-confidence,” Frederick said. “She always finds the positive in everything.”

<h3 class="breakHead">Curriculum vitae</h3>

Sally Keith

Age: 51

Residence: Wheaton

Occupation: First-grade teacher at Pleasant Hill Elementary in Winfield

Education: Wheaton-Warrenville High School; bachelor's degree from Taylor University; master's in curriculum and instruction from National Louis University; master's in administration and leadership from Aurora University

Interests: Reading, water-skiing, walking her dog, hanging out with friends and family

<h3 class="breakHead">Tips from a great teacher</h3>

Sally Keith's tips for new teachers:

• Enjoy the students. Don't let the other stuff get in the way of that.

• Trust yourself … your understanding of students, your plans for what they learn, your instinct if there is a student who struggles.

• Teach behavior and routines. Don't just expect kids to know or understand what good behavior looks like.

• Every day find one thing that you like and enjoy about each student. Find the time to tell them.

• Be realistic about your expectations of yourself, your students, your colleagues and your administration.

• Once a week leave school behind. Don't take any work home, not even your school bag.