2001 Montana Teacher of the Year
Ms. Zeal is a Title One teacher at Muldown Elementary School in Whitefish, Montana. She has been teaching Title One Reading and Mathematics to students in kindergarten through grade four for eighteen years.

What are your beliefs about teaching?
"Every child wants and needs to succeed in order to live a happy, productive life. Given an environment that is committed to that belief, every child can and will experience success. I believe in success for all."

How are your beliefs incorporated in your teaching style?
"I incorporate a variety of methods within every lesson in order to more fully meet the needs of every child and particular learning styles."

What is your greatest teaching accomplishment?
"My greatest teaching accomplishment was developing a reading program for struggling readers in our first grade, that offered success and enjoyment for readers who had faced failure in the past."

What's the most critical issue facing educators today and what do you think can be done to resolve this issue?
"The most critical issue facing educators today is adequate funding. Stable and sufficient funding is necessary to improve ways to meet the needs of today's complex, divergent student population as well as foreseeing the needs of whomever we'll be educating tomorrow. A way to resolve this issue is for teachers to step out of the safety of the classroom and enter the political arena. We must 'market' ourselves."

Inspirational thought:
"You wield tremendous power to create change, one child at a time. The future of this nation will be determined by the quality of education our young people have now."