Walker GBMS’ Teacher of the Year
BY FRANKLIN HAYES Gulf Breeze News franklin@gulfbreezenews.com

Frankllin Hayes/Gulf Breeze News Grading away Kate Walker, shown here grading papers, was recently named Gulf Breeze Middle School’s Teacher of the Year.

The American intellectual and writer Norman Podhoretz once said: “Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.”

So how does one teach this intriguing mixture of young enthusiasm and cerebral ability? Just ask gifted language arts instructor Kate Walker at Gulf Breeze Middle School (GBMS). Walker, who has taught at GBMS for seven years and has more than 11 years of total teaching experience, specializes in gifted education and was selected as the GBMS 2006/2007 Teacher of the Year.

“I wanted to teach gifted students because they are a real community that have academic and affective needs that are not fulfilled in a normal classroom,” said Walker, who holds a master’s degree in Gifted Education from the University of Southern Mississippi.

GBMS administrators are always impressed not only with Walker’s credentials, but her work ethic and overall effectiveness.

“She has a tremendous rapport with her students,” said GBMS Assistant Principal Richard Cobb. “You can see what kind of relationship a teacher has with her students by how many come back to see her. High school students regularly beat a path to her door.”

Walker, who teaches seventh and eighth grade gifted classes, said she guides this amalgamation of students with exceptional intellectual abilities by focusing on the individual interests and capabilities of each student.

One example of this is her “Writer’s Workshop” where students are encouraged to pursue whatever genre of creative writing that interests them, be it poetry, essays or song lyrics. Despite her success and her new recognition, Walker maintains that she does not stand out among her peers.

“I’m not unusual here [at GBMS],” Walker said. “I’m one of many teachers that work really hard and do extra things.”

Walker was elected teacher of the year at the school level by her co-workers. From there, the winning teachers from each school in Santa Rosa County will be narrowed down to one finalist for the entire school district.

That worthy instructor will be among 177,000 teachers throughout Florida vying for the statewide title of teacher of the year.

According to the National Association for Gifted Children, (NAGC), a gifted person is “someone who shows, or has the potential for showing, an exceptional level of performance in one or more areas of expression.”

Documents from NAGC, available online, also claim that this classification is applicable to approximately five percent of students in the United States, about three million children, but the NAGC does not subscribe to any one theory of the nature of human abilities or their origins.

“Even within schools you will find a range of personal beliefs about the word ‘gifted,’ which has become a term with multiple meanings and much nuance,” the website states.

Wanda Padgett, a guidance counselor at GBMS, said students are given a series of tests and referrals to be labeled gifted. The process can be started with a parent request or teacher referral, which prompts school administrators to give the student an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test.

If the student scores at least 130 or higher, the school refers them to the Santa Rosa School District where the district’s psychologist will issue another IQ test, the Weschler Intelligence Scale (WISC).

If the child scores at least 130 on that test, then student will be observed and graded using the gifted teacher checklist, which evaluates behavioral characteristics such as reading level, and advanced vocabulary usage.