Kerry Walukiewicz
Florida Teacher of the Year
Forest Grove Middle School, Ft. Pierce, FL
Grade 7, Reading/Language Arts

My teaching philosophy
I believe teaching is the greatest profession anyone can enter. To me, there is no greater feeling than watching the faces of my students light up when they master a concept.

My philosophy in action
In my classroom, I teach mastery. It is not enough for 80% of my students to understand a concept. I continue to re-teach until every child reaches mastery because I believe every child can and will learn.

My greatest teaching accomplishment
My greatest teaching accomplishment was having 90% of my students demonstrate mastery on our state achievement test.

The most critical issues facing educators today
The most critical issue facing educators is recruitment and retention.

Ways to resolve this issue
We need to continue to support new teachers. We need to help them with everything from developing lesson plans and classroom management techniques to modeling sound research based teaching strategies.

One thought to inspire teachers to succeed
If you teach children to believe in themselves, they will achieve not only in the classroom but in life as well.

One lesson every student should learn
All children should learn they have value, and they can make any dream a reality if they put their mind to it.

Back to the 2005 Teacher Profiles home page