Behind every great student is a great teacher. These teachers make spelling and vocabulary fun. They serve as spelling coaches, moderators and judges, but more often than not, they are simply motivators who encourage the students to be the best they can be. In the "Teacher Feature," we celebrate the men and women who educate the youth of our country.
Grace Johanningsmeier competed in the 2014 Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Her teacher, Ms. Elizabeth Meyers, has never been directly involved in the spelling bee at any level and claims that she's "not a great speller myself."
On the surface, it
may seem odd that Grace lists Ms. Meyers as her role model. Then, you read on
and see that Grace describes Ms. Meyers as "intelligent, funny, cool,
inspirational, witty, respectful and respected."
Cool? Funny? Who uses those words to describe a teacher?
We reached out to Ms. Meyers because we wanted to learn more about this eighth-grade English teacher at Westside Middle School in Omaha, Nebraska. We quickly realized that Grace was right.
Cool? Ms. Meyers has taught English for eight years in the United States, and spent 27 months in Ukraine as a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) volunteer with the Peace Corps. She also directs the annual school musical and used to be a competitive cheerleading coach.
Funny? When we asked her to send us a photo, Ms. Meyers attached two. One of her posing with an enormous statue in Ukraine (below, right) which she thought "would be fun to use," and the other, a selfie (above, left) in case we needed a closer option.
Inspirational? Ms. Meyers tells her students, "anything worth doing, is worth doing big." She reminds them that "if the worst comes to pass and success is not in the cards, let's fail in spectacular fashion, learn from it and have a story to tell."
Respectful and Respected? According to Grace, "while other classes did worksheets about books they were reading, in Ms. Meyers' class, we had discussions. Ms. Meyers respected each one of her students and rather than lecturing us on what she thought was right, she let us decide together what we thought was right. She let us teach each other."
Grace concluded her nomination by saying that her teacher is best described in the sentence she's heard from so many classmates and friends: "Ms. Meyers is awesome!"
The Scripps National Spelling Bee agrees. Thanks for being awesome, Ms. Elizabeth Meyers, and congratulations for being our featured teacher on spellingbee.com.
If you'd like to nominate a teacher for an upcoming teacher feature, let us know. Fill out your contact information at the link, then nominate the teacher on the following page.