Kimberly Feldman will be the first to tell you that it wasn’t always her plan to be a teacher.

Even though her mother was a teacher. Even though she remembers days as a kid when she’d give other children in the neighborhood reading assignments on her Raggedy Ann and Andy chalkboard. It wasn’t what she wanted to do.
 
And yet, all these years later, Feldman is celebrated as Howard County Teacher of the Year for 2009.

“I didn’t always want to teach,” she said. “But somehow I always found myself doing it anyway.”

According to Patti Caplan, spokeswoman for Howard County public schools, Feldman, 33, was selected because those who nominated her — her colleagues at Oakland Mills High School — highlighted her “unflagging commitment” and described her as a “caring, conscientious, creative teacher who expects the best from her students and herself.”

Oakland Mills’ principal Frank Eastham commended Feldman’s dedication to her profession.

“There are many people who can teach, but only a few people who can positively influence their students the way that she can,” he said of Feldman.

Eastham said Feldman taught his daughter last school year and was wowed by how his daughter responded to Feldman.

“A couple times, she said, ‘Wow, I wish I could have Mrs. Feldman every year,’ ” Eastham said. “It really was interesting to be able to hear what makes a good teacher from a student’s perspective.”

The honor is humbling, Feldman said.

“I almost felt like I didn’t deserve it,” she said. “It just made me more conscious of the fact that I didn’t do this alone. I could never have done it without this school’s support staff.”

Feldman, a ninth-grade English teacher at Oakland Mills, is in her ninth year as a teacher and her fourth year in Howard County.

After finishing her master’s degree in education at the University of Georgia in 2000, Feldman, a Louisiana native, took a job teaching in an Eskimo village in Alaska. While it was the toughest assignment of her professional career — none of the students spoke English as a first language and she had to teach several different subjects — it was also the most important learning experience.

“I discovered the importance of the teacher also being a learner,” she said. “You have to learn the culture of the students because they learn in a totally different context than you might have.”

Feldman credits that time in Alaska with providing her teaching tools she could apply anywhere.

After a year teaching in Atlanta, Feldman accepted a position as an English teacher at Oakland Mills in 2005. She said she was drawn to Oakland Mills because of its remarkable diversity.

“I wanted to get outside of myself,” she said. “I think this gives me a much better chance to find out who my students are and where they’re coming from.”

Feldman said her primary focus since joining the school’s staff has been helping her students grow.
 
She has done that, in part, by creating competition between her classes through games based on test and quiz performance, homework completed and organization, as well as a wall of fame. That, in turn, has created an environment of support in each class.
“They’re pushing each other to be more organized, to do better work because they want to beat the other class,” she said. “They feel safe and feel as though they’re part of something.”

As it turns out, the profession Feldman initially favored has helped her improve in the field of education. Though she opted for teaching over journalism at the University of Georgia, Feldman has since published several articles in various national education journals on her experiences teaching in Alaska.

“I wanted to be a journalist when I was in high school,” she said. “And even now, I’m hoping to get some more articles published in the next few years.”

In the meantime, Feldman will represent Howard County in the state’s Teacher of the Year contest. In the state contest, she will compete for a new car, $5,000, classroom equipment and professional development classes.

But the attention and prestige of being named the county’s top teacher hasn’t swayed Feldman’s focus. She’s thinking ahead to next year, when she will be part of Oakland Mills’ new Positive Behavior Intervention System team — a group aimed at improving school discipline through positive reinforcement.

She’s also hoping to create a new after-school technology program that would train students in computer science and possibly provide some of the needier students with computers.

“I want to be involved in meeting that need,” she said.

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