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2012 West Carrollton graduation
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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2005 > August > 09 > Entry
When a nine-year-old gets it
How do you know when someone is a great teacher? It’s easy. Even a third grader can tell.
I met Danielle Boger Monday at Fairview Elementary School. I started talking to her because she was the “linebacker” for 2005 district teacher of the year Greg Powell’s sixth grade class — the student at the back of the line who keeps everyone going forward.
Danielle is tall and was hard not to notice back there in her white-shirt-blue-pants school uniform, wearing a bright smile. Powell picked her for this job because she’s a smart kid and a leader. She told me later she plans to be a doctor.
I wanted to know what makes Powell a great teacher. So I asked Danielle what she remembered about the first time she met him.
“I was in third grade,” she said. “I was in band and I had gotten noticed for my grades. I decided to try out for basketball and he was the coach.
” Ever since then I wanted to be in his class,” she said, proudly adding, “Now I’m in it.”
Her classmate this year, DeQuinn Talley, plans to own his own business one day. Powell was DeQuinn’s track coach in fourth grade, helping him prepare for the citywide meet.
“He means business when it comes to competition,” DeQuinn said.
But DeQuinn noticed something else about Powell after their track experience together. It was his class — the way they walked the halls and how they conducted themselves at school functions.
“His class is always the smartest,” DeQuinn said.
Dustin Young, another of Powell’s 27 students this year, wants to follow his brother into the military. He knows Powell has already walked that path and Dustin perhaps best summed up his teacher. He, too, said he’s wanted to be in Powell’s class since third grade.
“He doesn’t play around about getting an education,” Dustin said. “That’s mainly what he’s about.”
Powell told me Monday that the kids aren’t impressed that his was in the Air Force, or that he once helped manage a billion dollar program or that he has traveled the world.
“What matters to them is what can you do for me? How can you help me?” he said.
And even at age nine or 10, the kids get it: His class is smart. He can help me win. He can help me reach my dreams.
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