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Single mom going to college is now teacher of the year
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| Pam Price, once a student and a single mother, was recognized as the elementary teacher of the year this year by the school district. |
By KOSAKU NARIOKA
This week we profile Pam Price, a second grade teacher at Deer Park Elementary. Deer Park Independent School District named her the teacher of the year for elementary school this summer. Price was also chosen to be the elementary teacher of the year in the Houston area, representing the 54 school districts in seven counties.
Deer Park Broadcaster: You are a second grade teacher. How many students do you have in here (your class)?
Price: Right now, I only have 17. Actually that’s kind of nice because you can give each one of them a little more individual attention. Last year I had 16, but we didn’t have a resource class last year, where the special [need] kids go. It just so happen, a couple of my kids transferred and moved out of the district. When the next new child comes in, I’ll be the one that gets.
What do you teach?
All subjects. That’s called self-contain, which means you teach all subjects: all the language arts; reading, spelling and language; math; science and social studies. I guess that’s your core.
I believe you lost a few instructional days because of Hurricane Ike. How did you bring children’s attention to school again? Was it difficult?
When they came back, we spent a day talking and writing about it and let them express their feeling about it because a few of them still didn’t have electricity. A few of them had home damage, but I didn’t have anybody lose their home or anything like that. It’s good for them to talk about it once we got back, so then we can get back on track.
With my understanding, second grade students don’t have to take TAKS test.
No, they don’t take the official TAKS, but they do take benchmarks to see how they are doing. We’ve just had one in math in October, and then in January, they’ll take a reading and math, and at the end of the year, they’ll take a reading and math. It measures their growth along the way. It is TAKS-formatted so the kids are already starting to see how that is, but it’s not the official TAKS.
If they know you believe in them, they know you support them, and you give them self-confidence, they’ll meet those expectations. As you gently raise the bar, they keep reaching. And they’ll meet it if they know you care and you believe in them. You make them believe in them. I always feel at the beginning of the year, I don’t know how we’ll do it. They surprise you. But you have to show that you really care about them. There is a lot of nurturing that goes along to get them to be able to. It’s a lot of hard work.
Is it sort of your educational philosophy?
I believe if you can touch a child’s heart, the mind is much easier to reach. That’s pretty much what I believe on that. Because a child, they won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. I also believe that since the curriculum is so rigorous and hard that you have to add laughter, a lot of laughter, because if I think back to all the teachers that I had when I was a child, it didn’t matter how hard it was if you really like that teacher. If you really enjoy the class and made learning fun, they didn’t want to miss even if it was hard. That’s kind of my philosophy with that.
And I believe in the classroom with color, bright surroundings, and a lot of their work. I believed a risk-free environment, where all the children feel that they can express themselves, take a risk and nobody teases them – a very family environment, where each child is proud of who they are and where they come from, and we learn to laugh with each other, not at each other.
How do you approach if you find out someone is bullying somebody else?
They know from Day 1, everyone that has ever had me know that is not acceptable in my class. If they are just bickering back and forth, I just want them to go talk it out because if you send them over to talk it out, somehow they always work it out. A lot of times, they can just talk out their problem, but as far as, I mean, bullying is a whole different thing. It’s not acceptable. There is going to be a consequence for that. Because pretty much from Day 1, children almost know, they may test me a couple of times, but then they don’t test me again. From the moment we sit down and start talking about our rules in the school and in the classroom, I tell them that’s my most important one. They have to be respectful of each other and they have to treat each other like we are family, or better than their family, if they don’t treat their brothers and sisters very good. There are consequences if I find out that they are doing something like that. They are going to write a paper to their parents and an apology to that child.
In the campus improvement plan, I found this very interesting – Six Pillars of Character— I think this is one of the initiatives Deer Park Elementary has set this year. Could you explain how do you do it at school?
We are doing character development in the whole school right now. As far as the school, we have tickets. We just did trustworthiness, if you saw a child doing something, like one of my students found, we sell popcorn bags and fruits, snacks for fundraiser in the gym and one fell out, he found it on the floor. A little boy, he came and brought it to me. He could’ve put it in his desk. They were small. He could’ve put it in his backpack. But he’s saying, “Ms. Price, this was on the floor and it’s not mine.” I told him to take it to the office, and we made a big deal of it. “That was so honest.” And he got a character ticket. There are jars down by the cafeteria for each grade, and kids put their name in it for drawings for prizes and stuff. At the end of the nine weeks, two children: a boy and a girl are picked out of every single classroom that have exhibited good character through the nine weeks. You recognize that child was really following all of the character traits.
As far as just in the classroom, if I see a child doing something really kind to somebody and getting books, helping somebody that is having problems. I just say, “That was just so kind. That was so sweet.” All kids just jump on the bandwagon because they want their teacher's approval. That’s how we do it in the classroom.
I think you said you live in Pearland.
I just moved to Pearland. My husband and I, our kids are all grown, and we just built a home in Pearland, and so now I pay tolls to come and work in Deer Park. I lived in the Deer Park school district, actually it was Pasadena, over off of Fairmont for 24 years and my kids were in the Deer Park school district.
I have a married daughter. I have a grandbaby. My oldest daughter is 27 and her name is Taylar. She and her husband lived in Austin, but when they had my first grand baby they moved back. Now, they are in Pearland. And I have a daughter Paige who is doing her student teaching and she will graduate in December, so right now she’s come home from college. She was going to UTSA, but she wanted to do her student teaching here and so she had to transfer to University of Houston just while she does her student teaching, otherwise she would have to do it in San Antonio, so she is living with us until she finishes. And then my other daughter Britney, she is a hair stylist and is 21.
My first husband was killed when I started college. I went to college for two years, I got married and I came back 13 years later to finish my degree. It was five weeks into when I started back to college, but I kept on going so I was a single mom until I remarried.
What happened to your first husband?
He was killed at the barbecue cook-off at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at the Astrodome in 1990. He was electrocuted on the lighting system. He was 34. We had been married 13 years. Now I’ve been married that long again but I dated my husband for 3 years, so I’ve been with my husband (Eric) for 16 years.
Which college did you go?
I went to the University of Houston-Clear Lake. I majored in reading and I minored in art. I have since been back and got my certification in ESL, English as Second Language, too.
When did you start working for DPISD?
Immediately when I graduated. It’s been 12 years since 1996. I’ve been a teacher for 12 years right here in this classroom. I love second graders. They love school. They love their teacher. They love learning at this age. Second graders are very independent.
They are not like the little kindergarteners, but they still have this joy inside.
What were you doing before you went back to college for 12 years?Yeah, I worked, but when I got married, I stayed at home with my children and I mostly did community service work. It was then that I though I would like to give, that’s service above self, you know, and I knew I wanted to give more. I got a taste of doing lots of community work and I thought I have more to give. When I went back, it was only five weeks and two [days] when my husband died. I had a couple of teachers that really kind of picked me up by their bootstraps and dust me off. It was them that inspired me that I wanted to be a teacher and give back what somebody gave to me. I just started school, so I really at that point hadn’t made a degree plan, and with what I went through right then and how the professors in college nurtured me right then, “Don't stop, keep going,” that’s where I got the education bug.It has made me relate to the kids having lost family member. Having had children I see how they, my children, were with having a parent gone. So I have gone through the grief. I’ve seen children with grief. I have been the single parent, so I can relate to the single parents. Through a lot of life experiences, I think that gave me more insight to be a better teacher and help the kids and the parents to be very supportive of both and work as a team—the parents, the kids and me— we work as a team. I think the parents appreciate that too. When they know you’ve been through this. You’ve been that single parent. You’ve been through these losses and changes, and you know I went to school while my kids were at school. They were little. I was still a room mother for all of them. You can do those things for your kids yet still go to school. I think I passed that on to the parents to try to bring up the best of the parents.
What are your hobbies?
I like to travel. I love to read. I’m a calligrapher and have been one for 27 years. I painted, sold my art, and did wedding invitations, baby announcements and writing— all the different kinds of lettering. Time with my family. That’s all my hobbies.
Deer Park Broadcaster: You are a second grade teacher. How many students do you have in here (your class)?
Price: Right now, I only have 17. Actually that’s kind of nice because you can give each one of them a little more individual attention. Last year I had 16, but we didn’t have a resource class last year, where the special [need] kids go. It just so happen, a couple of my kids transferred and moved out of the district. When the next new child comes in, I’ll be the one that gets.
What do you teach?
All subjects. That’s called self-contain, which means you teach all subjects: all the language arts; reading, spelling and language; math; science and social studies. I guess that’s your core.
I believe you lost a few instructional days because of Hurricane Ike. How did you bring children’s attention to school again? Was it difficult?
When they came back, we spent a day talking and writing about it and let them express their feeling about it because a few of them still didn’t have electricity. A few of them had home damage, but I didn’t have anybody lose their home or anything like that. It’s good for them to talk about it once we got back, so then we can get back on track.
With my understanding, second grade students don’t have to take TAKS test.
No, they don’t take the official TAKS, but they do take benchmarks to see how they are doing. We’ve just had one in math in October, and then in January, they’ll take a reading and math, and at the end of the year, they’ll take a reading and math. It measures their growth along the way. It is TAKS-formatted so the kids are already starting to see how that is, but it’s not the official TAKS.
If they know you believe in them, they know you support them, and you give them self-confidence, they’ll meet those expectations. As you gently raise the bar, they keep reaching. And they’ll meet it if they know you care and you believe in them. You make them believe in them. I always feel at the beginning of the year, I don’t know how we’ll do it. They surprise you. But you have to show that you really care about them. There is a lot of nurturing that goes along to get them to be able to. It’s a lot of hard work.
Is it sort of your educational philosophy?
I believe if you can touch a child’s heart, the mind is much easier to reach. That’s pretty much what I believe on that. Because a child, they won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. I also believe that since the curriculum is so rigorous and hard that you have to add laughter, a lot of laughter, because if I think back to all the teachers that I had when I was a child, it didn’t matter how hard it was if you really like that teacher. If you really enjoy the class and made learning fun, they didn’t want to miss even if it was hard. That’s kind of my philosophy with that.
And I believe in the classroom with color, bright surroundings, and a lot of their work. I believed a risk-free environment, where all the children feel that they can express themselves, take a risk and nobody teases them – a very family environment, where each child is proud of who they are and where they come from, and we learn to laugh with each other, not at each other.
How do you approach if you find out someone is bullying somebody else?
They know from Day 1, everyone that has ever had me know that is not acceptable in my class. If they are just bickering back and forth, I just want them to go talk it out because if you send them over to talk it out, somehow they always work it out. A lot of times, they can just talk out their problem, but as far as, I mean, bullying is a whole different thing. It’s not acceptable. There is going to be a consequence for that. Because pretty much from Day 1, children almost know, they may test me a couple of times, but then they don’t test me again. From the moment we sit down and start talking about our rules in the school and in the classroom, I tell them that’s my most important one. They have to be respectful of each other and they have to treat each other like we are family, or better than their family, if they don’t treat their brothers and sisters very good. There are consequences if I find out that they are doing something like that. They are going to write a paper to their parents and an apology to that child.
In the campus improvement plan, I found this very interesting – Six Pillars of Character— I think this is one of the initiatives Deer Park Elementary has set this year. Could you explain how do you do it at school?
We are doing character development in the whole school right now. As far as the school, we have tickets. We just did trustworthiness, if you saw a child doing something, like one of my students found, we sell popcorn bags and fruits, snacks for fundraiser in the gym and one fell out, he found it on the floor. A little boy, he came and brought it to me. He could’ve put it in his desk. They were small. He could’ve put it in his backpack. But he’s saying, “Ms. Price, this was on the floor and it’s not mine.” I told him to take it to the office, and we made a big deal of it. “That was so honest.” And he got a character ticket. There are jars down by the cafeteria for each grade, and kids put their name in it for drawings for prizes and stuff. At the end of the nine weeks, two children: a boy and a girl are picked out of every single classroom that have exhibited good character through the nine weeks. You recognize that child was really following all of the character traits.
As far as just in the classroom, if I see a child doing something really kind to somebody and getting books, helping somebody that is having problems. I just say, “That was just so kind. That was so sweet.” All kids just jump on the bandwagon because they want their teacher's approval. That’s how we do it in the classroom.
I think you said you live in Pearland.
I just moved to Pearland. My husband and I, our kids are all grown, and we just built a home in Pearland, and so now I pay tolls to come and work in Deer Park. I lived in the Deer Park school district, actually it was Pasadena, over off of Fairmont for 24 years and my kids were in the Deer Park school district.
I have a married daughter. I have a grandbaby. My oldest daughter is 27 and her name is Taylar. She and her husband lived in Austin, but when they had my first grand baby they moved back. Now, they are in Pearland. And I have a daughter Paige who is doing her student teaching and she will graduate in December, so right now she’s come home from college. She was going to UTSA, but she wanted to do her student teaching here and so she had to transfer to University of Houston just while she does her student teaching, otherwise she would have to do it in San Antonio, so she is living with us until she finishes. And then my other daughter Britney, she is a hair stylist and is 21.
My first husband was killed when I started college. I went to college for two years, I got married and I came back 13 years later to finish my degree. It was five weeks into when I started back to college, but I kept on going so I was a single mom until I remarried.
What happened to your first husband?
He was killed at the barbecue cook-off at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at the Astrodome in 1990. He was electrocuted on the lighting system. He was 34. We had been married 13 years. Now I’ve been married that long again but I dated my husband for 3 years, so I’ve been with my husband (Eric) for 16 years.
Which college did you go?
I went to the University of Houston-Clear Lake. I majored in reading and I minored in art. I have since been back and got my certification in ESL, English as Second Language, too.
When did you start working for DPISD?
Immediately when I graduated. It’s been 12 years since 1996. I’ve been a teacher for 12 years right here in this classroom. I love second graders. They love school. They love their teacher. They love learning at this age. Second graders are very independent.
They are not like the little kindergarteners, but they still have this joy inside.
What were you doing before you went back to college for 12 years?Yeah, I worked, but when I got married, I stayed at home with my children and I mostly did community service work. It was then that I though I would like to give, that’s service above self, you know, and I knew I wanted to give more. I got a taste of doing lots of community work and I thought I have more to give. When I went back, it was only five weeks and two [days] when my husband died. I had a couple of teachers that really kind of picked me up by their bootstraps and dust me off. It was them that inspired me that I wanted to be a teacher and give back what somebody gave to me. I just started school, so I really at that point hadn’t made a degree plan, and with what I went through right then and how the professors in college nurtured me right then, “Don't stop, keep going,” that’s where I got the education bug.It has made me relate to the kids having lost family member. Having had children I see how they, my children, were with having a parent gone. So I have gone through the grief. I’ve seen children with grief. I have been the single parent, so I can relate to the single parents. Through a lot of life experiences, I think that gave me more insight to be a better teacher and help the kids and the parents to be very supportive of both and work as a team—the parents, the kids and me— we work as a team. I think the parents appreciate that too. When they know you’ve been through this. You’ve been that single parent. You’ve been through these losses and changes, and you know I went to school while my kids were at school. They were little. I was still a room mother for all of them. You can do those things for your kids yet still go to school. I think I passed that on to the parents to try to bring up the best of the parents.
What are your hobbies?
I like to travel. I love to read. I’m a calligrapher and have been one for 27 years. I painted, sold my art, and did wedding invitations, baby announcements and writing— all the different kinds of lettering. Time with my family. That’s all my hobbies.
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