By Frances Thrasher Norge

Correspondent

Today is like any other day in Keri Lambert's class - unpredictable.

It's the day before the Chesapeake Citywide Benchmark Test, and students in her seventh-grade U.S. history class at Indian River Middle School are reviewing. Not that they realize this is work.

Gone are the days of simple questions and answers or quiet reading and review. Today is "Deal or No Deal."

Lambert clicks her iPod and cheesy game show music begins. It's 9:30 a.m. on a Thursday, and the class sits divided into two teams. Each student remains quiet, paying attention to Lambert's question. Then their hands eagerly jet into the air, fingertips fluttering, butts fidgeting and eyes wide, trying their best to gain her attention.

"Kids have to have fun or they won't learn," Lambert, 34, said. " And with this generation they are so computer-oriented. You can't lose that. You have to go with it in your classroom."

Lambert perches in front of the classroom in a blue pantsuit. She stands smaller than half of her seventh-grade students but talks loudly and assertively.

Behind the students is a green chalkboard filled with a "word wall" and "wall of essential knowledge" for U.S. history. Past student projects sit atop every bookcase and file cabinet.

"The moment she walks into her classroom she's on fire," said Indian River Middle administrative assistant and instructional coach Michelle Ferebee. "She's crazy dynamic and is on point every day."

Each student will eventually get the opportunity to answer a question. Each correct answer gains the team a choice of oversized white index cards with a number from one to 25 printed on the front. On the back, Lambert has typed an amount ranging from

.01 cents to $1,000,000.

Teams picked their original cards before the game began. The goal is to end up with the card displaying the most cash.

A student on the right side of the room answers a question correctly. She is presented with a potential deal - $500,000.

The class responds with oohs and aahs, and suggestions to take it or leave it. She leaves it. Judging from the students' responses, this is crazy.

The game continues until someone picks the card with $1,000,000 and calls "deal."

One student jokes that they expect the $1 million in cash. Lambert replies that she doesn't have that much money, but "could give you 1,000,000 smiles instead."

The student replies "you've already given us that. What else do you have to offer?"

Lambert is all smiles today. Maybe it's because she was recently named Chesapeake's Citywide Teacher of the Year. Or maybe her colleagues have it right. Maybe she smiles every day just because she loves to teach.

"She has a creative ability to get the kids mesmerized by her teaching," said Indian River Middle School Principal Naomi Epps. "The kids' eyes light up when she's teaching. Her eyes light up when she's teaching. You can tell she has that love for teaching."

Several colleagues nominated Lambert for the school-wide teacher of the year award. Each school then works with their teacher of the year to prepare a binder to submit to the city's committee, which judges each applicant in three areas: interpersonal relationships with students, parents and teachers; instructional expertise and community involvement.

"I have learned so much from her," said Ann Young, a seventh-grade U.S. history teacher with Lambert at Indian River. "She teaches in so many different ways that it reaches all of her students, and all of them can contribute. Her students feel free to talk about anything, and they're on a level playing field. They feel safe and aren't afraid to be wrong."

Nine finalists are chosen for the Chesapeake Teacher of the Year, and they each complete another packet for final consideration of the award. An elementary, secondary and citywide teacher are chosen. Lambert is the first citywide teacher of the year from Indian River Middle School.

Her next step is to submit an application packet to the Virginia Teacher of the Year committee.

 

Meeting special needs

Lambert began teaching at Indian River four years ago but truly started teaching much younger. She grew up in a small West Virginia farming community and transformed her backyard clubhouse into a classroom, where she taught her younger sisters and Cabbage Patch dolls.

In intermediate school, she worked closely with a hearing-impaired student, and by high school worked as a mentor and coach to special-needs students.

Lambert graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in speech pathology and audiology. She then married her husband and followed him to Washington, D.C., where she began working with hearing-impaired individuals in Maryland, teaching American Sign Language.

"That's when I realized teaching is what I was meant to do," Lambert said. "So the very next year I accepted a position in Falls Church City as a middle school ASL teacher and paraprofessional."

Lambert completed course work and gained her collegiate teaching license in middle school English and history through Northern Virginia Community College and the University of Virginia while teaching in Falls Church.

Lambert moved to Virginia when she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, now 4 years old.

"My husband was working all the time," Lambert said, "and I couldn't do this on my own. I wanted him home, and so he switched firms."

Her husband now works as operations director for a Norfolk law firm.

Lambert knew nothing of Chesapeake, much less its schools. She accepted the position at Indian River and moved to her current home in Deep Creek.

"I'm a better teacher now than what I was in Falls Church," Lambert said. "I've definitely found my niche here."

Lambert said many of her colleagues and friends ask her why she chooses to teach middle school.

"I love the age group," Lambert said. "I love to see the transition of these children. When they walk out of here after eighth grade they have matured so much. It's an amazing time period."

 

Making learning fun

Lambert teaches from the standard classroom textbooks, but she also created her own SOL-oriented book along with her colleagues Young and Tracy Reynolds.

Three years ago, Lambert took a leadership role in creating the Braves' Camp, a three-year cycle of camps that review SOL content for each grade level.

"I'm OK with the SOLs," Lambert said. "I realize that it's making teachers accountable. It's definitely something that we work on day in and day out."

Each camp takes place for four hours on a Saturday. The sixth-graders participate in the Basic Boot Camp, seventh grade is the Game Show Marathon, and eighth-graders attend the Carnival of Learning.

" It had to be something that would keep kids entertained on a Saturday, when most kids want to be playing at home or going to the mall," she said.

Lambert decided to create her version of the "Amazing Race," with students darting through the school's hallways. She and her co-chairs, Young and Reynolds, have re-created the "$10,000 Pyramid" and transformed the school into a carnival complete with a lucky duck and milk-can toss game.

"My goal is to get the best possible review for the students in the short amount of time I have," Lambert said. "... I want the students to realize how much their teachers and community believe in them."

 

Frances Thrasher Norge, 630-6937,

hokiefran@cox.net