The KBAY Teacher of the Month for March is Kim Cosmas, who teaches at Valle Vista Elementary School in the Mount Pleasant School District. This is Kim’s 4th year of teaching, mostly in second grade. She says, “I’ve spent the last three years at Valle Vista Elementary as a second grade teacher but my first year of teaching was as a kindergarten teacher near Hilo, HI on the eastern side of the Big Island.  Before all that I worked for 12 years in the tech field as a network infrastructure engineer and program manager when I decided that I would finally put all the teaching I’d done throughout my life into use and went back for a master’s degree in elementary education.”

Kim goes on to say, “Now it’s my fourth year of teaching and, while I finally feel like I’m beginning to hit my stride as an educator, I still feel that I have so very, very much to learn to become a good teacher. It’s organizations like the Silicon Valley Education Foundation that let me do that by helping me bring unique, memorable experiences to my students.” Kim will receive a Teacher Innovation Grant for her classes from the Silicon Valley Education Foundation.

Kim will use her SVEF Teacher Innovation Grant to bring the Banana Slug String Band to her school for the first and second grade students. “This group has been around for more then 25 years bringing their unique musical style of teaching about the environment to students all over the world.  The “Living With The Earth” performance will engage and involve the students with songs and activities that address the combination of everything that they’ve been studying throughout the entire school year: the strong relationship of plants, animals, and the Earth. Through this performance our students will learn to understand just how related everything they have been learning and everything they touch in their day-to-day lives is related on the Earth. The live, “Living with the Earth” in-school “field trip” by the Banana Slug String Band will bring music, movement, and play into our (unfortunately) very heavily text-oriented, test-score driven form of instruction these days. Instead of merely reading about the facts of soil, rocks, and animal and plant life cycles in books, our students will be able to actively engage in music and song while they are learning the scientific facts shared by the Banana Slug String Band performance.  Not only does this form of instruction allow for us educators to reach ALL of our students through the presentation’s much differentiated form of instruction, but it is fun and engaging for everyone involved….including for us teachers!”

Kim says of her school and program, “Valle Vista is a K-5 school in the small Mt. Pleasant school district in East San Jose. As with most other districts out there, we’re definitely struggling financially these days. Next year we’re facing the loss of class size reduction in every class and many of us are worried about our positions, but we’re all still concerned in making sure our students succeed.”

“My classroom is full of twenty-two, high-poverty second graders who speak a total of six languages in addition to the English language that they learn in everyday at school.  They come from a variety of home lives and environments, but when they come into our classroom it’s my hope that through all of the different positive classroom behavior facets, my students will feel challenged in an extremely positive, successful environment.”
When asked what she liked most about being a teacher, Kim replied, “Defining what you like about being a teacher really depends on the day you’re asked. Today I would have to say the best part was when my student that struggles greatly with reading was finally able to complete a reading comprehension test successfully on their own without any assistance. Yesterday it was seeing a student who had really struggled with trusting himself to work on his own finish everything he was asked to do. Last week I was dazzled when a student made an amazing personal connection to a really difficult text. So in short, I would have to say that the best thing of teaching is seeing all of these small victories for the students as they feel themselves learning and succeeding.”

Speaking of the biggest challenge she faces every day in her classroom Kim says, “It’s hard to think of a mere single challenge since there are so many in the classroom. But in today’s age of constant test prep and constant testing, one of my biggest challenges is trying to keep kids excited about school and about learning just for the pure fun of learning. That’s why I’m really excited for this SVEF grant to be able to bring the more artistic, musical and kinesthetic side of learning in the form of the Banana Slug String Band to our first and second graders at Valle Vista while they actually further develop what they’ve already learned about the relationship of plants, animals and the Earth.”

Congratulations to Kim Cosmas, KBAY’s Teacher of the Month for March.

Inspiring Tomorrow’s Innovators