Henrico's Top Teachers – Kari Mitchell, Fair Oaks Elementary School, third grade

Some days, third grade teacher Kari Mitchell will have a lesson all planned out, having spent hours the night before perfecting it, only to meet the blank stares of her students the next day.

“If they’re looking at you like you have three heads, then you just haven’t done what you needed to do,” Mitchell said. “I think this lesson in my head is going to go amazing, and then when I execute it, it doesn’t go as planned. So sometimes I have to do a little revert, and that kind of throws me off my game.”

Teaching third grade can be challenging, even if you’re a longtime teacher like Mitchell, who has been teaching for the past 19 years. Mitchell’s third grade class at Fair Oaks Elementary has students with a wide range of abilities. As a “collaborative class” with a large number of exceptional education students, Mitchell also has a special ed co-teacher in the room.

A lot of Mitchell’s students have not learned how to read yet, and some are still working to identify the letters and letter sounds. So Mitchell doesn’t have her students read out loud, not wanting to make any students uncomfortable. Instead, she tries to make learning to read a game, doing word matching and letter matching activities so that all students – readers and those still learning – can participate.

“It’s making a game into it, so they’re learning but they don’t realize that they’re learning because they think they’re playing a game,” she said. “They felt like they were doing it on their own, but they were also doing it with me so that I was kind of scaffolding and helping them find a strategy that worked for them.”

Mitchell does the same thing with math; third grade math focuses on two-by-one multiplication, but a lot of students come in without knowing their basic multiplication facts. Making multiplication into a game helps lessen the pressure for students struggling with math, getting them to the point where they can grasp the concept and feel a sense of pride in themselves.

“When they start getting it, and the smile that they get on their face because they’ve just accomplished something, it just motivates me, the way that they react when they feel like they’re doing well,” Mitchell said.

Oftentimes, her students will come home jumping with excitement from what they just learned and talk nonstop to their parents of what they accomplished.

“I have parents that text me and will be like, ‘My son was telling me all about these things, he said he can tell time now. And he said, ‘Mom, if you don’t know how to tell time, you need to come sit in Ms. Mitchell’s class because she can teach you how to tell time!’” Mitchell said.

But other moments can be much more difficult. When students are having a bad day and dealing with issues that happen at home, they will often shut down and have a hard time participating in class. Other students will shut down after struggling to grasp a concept.

“Being a teacher sometimes is very, I don’t know, it’s heartbreaking,” she said. “Because sometimes you try to get a kid to understand something and sometimes they can’t. But then when you do have those moments where they understand exactly what you’re doing or they go home and tell their parents about it, that is so rewarding to me.”

Mitchell makes a big effort to connect especially with those students that may shut down. She makes time to pull aside students individually, to chat with them about the lesson, the work they’ve been doing, their favorite things they did over break – anything that will get them out of “shut down” mode.

“The ones that do kind of shut down more, I feel like I connect more with them because I feel like they need me more,” she said. “In the classroom, I feel like we’re going nonstop with teaching things. Sometimes it’s hard to connect with those students, so you’ve got to find those little moments when you can pull them to your table and get to know each student individually.”

Her special efforts pay off. The mother of one student of Mitchell's said that the extra time Mitchell takes with her students gives them that boost of confidence and support to help them persevere through challenges.

“[Mitchell’s] passion in teaching shines through in every lesson, every interaction, and every encouraging word,” the parent wrote in a nomination letter. “When my son felt like giving up, she was there to remind him of his potential and the importance of pushing forward. Her belief in him has made all the difference this year in third grade.”

Even on the difficult days, being a teacher will always be one of the most fulfilling things she has ever done, Mitchell said.

“I just feel like teaching is the most rewarding profession there is, because you get to see your students come in in August and then you can see how much they’ve grown by the end of the year, and you can see how proud they become of themselves,” she said. “And some days you just feel very defeated, but then when the kids are just so excited to see you or you get those sweet little stories from parents, it just makes it all worth it.”