Behind the Scenes at MHS: Teachers help students realize their potential
By JESSICA BERNHARDT
MHS student reporter
Teachers use various techniques and methods to measure student learning.
Marion High School teachers JoAnn Good and Kelly Robson rely on student participation to measure the results of teaching.
Good listens to her foreign language students while Robson has his math students work out problems on the chalkboard.
Good has been married to Bob Good, a custodian at Marion Elementary School, for the past 37 years. They have two children, Ethan and Oliver.
In her free time, Good enjoys traveling, reading, working outdoors, and hiking.
Good was born in Hillsboro and raised near Durham. She graduated from high school in Durham and was an exchange student in Germany her senior year.
She continued her education in the United States, majoring in German at Emporia State University with a minor in Spanish. She later added French and graduated college in 1972. After several years of graduate work at a variety of schools, she became a teacher in Hillsboro and taught there for five years.
Her experience before becoming a teacher at Marion included teaching at Tabor College, Butler County Community College, and Emporia State University.
Good has been a teacher at Marion USD 408 for the past 26 years. She currently teaches foreign language, including German, French, and Spanish at the high school level, and Spanish at the middle school level. She previously taught Spanish at the elementary school.
The main reason Good became a teacher was because she enjoyed school and learning. She also believes that everyone is born with the ability to learn, but the teacher provides help to the students.
A memorable moment that Good has is from her German I class several years ago. Levi Arnhold and Steven Janzen were two giants in the play, "Brave Little Tailor." They both had boxes filled with foam rubber to imitate broad shoulders, and a plastic bag filled with newspaper for their heads. There was a scene where the two giants got in a "fight" with a baseball bat and croquet mallet.
The original plan was to swing at each other in slow motion so as to pantomime the fight. Without telling Good what they were doing, Arnhold and Janzen decided they would actually hit each other.
Good said, "I was "horrified because I thought they were going to hurt each other, but the audience, on the other hand, erupted with laughter."
Good evaluates whether students are learning in her classroom simply by listening. "With a foreign language class, you have to hear it," she said. She also says she can "see the kids thinking about how to put a sentence together." Word order is different in other languages and takes practice.
Partnerships are a huge part of Good's classes. In each foreign language class, she partners people so they have someone to practice speaking with. With partner work, students are "more prepared when figuring something out if they have someone to work with."
To keep students motivated in her classroom, Good has the students perform dramatizations, present information about themselves in the language they are learning, and present plays to elementary students toward the end of the year.
The plays are a significant part of the year. High school students spend about a month memorizing lines and choreographing their play. Plays usually are those elementary students are familiar with.
Convincing students that what they are learning is worthwhile seems to be the most difficult aspect of teaching for Good.
She said, "Even if you can't see it, education prepares you for what you don't expect. You never know what will happen in the future — you have to be ready for anything." She also believes that students can't really say "I'll never use this."
A lot of people don't have an open mind. She hopes to try to get her students to consider other peoples' views and understand various points of view.
Good's goals for the next few years include learning Chinese, putting her plays into book form, and getting certification to become an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher.
Robson was born in Freeport, Ill., and attended grade school at Cottonwood Falls. He and his family moved and he began seventh grade at Laurel, Neb. He graduated high school at Laurel and moved back to Kansas to attend Sterling College for four years.
In 1987, he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in math education. In 1998, he graduated Emporia State University with a master's degree.
Robson has been married to county attorney Susan Robson for 12 years and has two children, Zach and Bailey. Robson enjoys reading, golfing, and figuring out assortments of puzzles.
For the past 19 years, Robson has taught at several schools including one year each in Nickerson and Hoisington, and five years in both Ellsworth and Peabody. For the past seven years, Robson has taught math at Marion High School. His classes include Geometry, Algebra IA, and Algebra I. Robson also is the middle school boys' basketball coach.
When Robson began his career, he wanted to coach. Only teachers could coach, so he became a teacher. The reason he remains a teacher today is because he enjoys working with teens.
Robson believes everyone has the ability to learn, but he thinks how people develop that ability varies from person to person.
In teaching math, he has to try to get all high school math students to a certain standard. Since students learn at various levels, he feels the most difficult aspect of teaching is trying to find a way to get all students to the same level. It used to be that if students came with no ability, you could teach them a little and they would be satisfied. Nowadays, Robson said, "If a student comes to me with no ability, I have to get them to a particular standard."
To keep his students motivated, Robson mainly uses humor. He also tries to keep the discussion moving in the right direction, and has students participate either at the chalkboard or at their seat. "Even though it is difficult to do, I also try to find places to apply math outside of the classroom," he said.
When students work problems correctly and get the right answer, Robson knows that learning has been taking place in his classroom.
A memorable moment Robson has was from his years of teaching at Ellsworth. As a homecoming activity, jars with teachers' names on them were placed so students could put money in the jars for the teacher that they wanted to kiss a pig. Whoever had the most money in their jar had to kiss the pig. Robson won that competition, "or lost it
Goals for the next years include continuing to improve as a teacher and finding ways to keep students improving on state assessments. He also hopes to be a positive part of the staff at the high school.
