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Gallagher is 24-year veteran.
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What makes a teacher great?
These Tucson-area educators have some thoughts.
Charles Gallagher,
Santa Rita High
"It's an accumulation of a lot of things. You have to be patient ... you have to be a good listener. Listening might not be hearing them speak. You have to pay attention to their body language and be able to read them."
Krista Gypton,
Empire High School
"Passion. I think that's the number one thing; having the passion for what you're doing. The kids get that, and if you care about something it makes the kids care about it."
Sue Butler,
Howenstine High Magnet School
"To me, a great teacher is one who listens more than they talk. Talking isn't teaching. And one who requires students to do something with the information they learn."
"With all the testing and things that are really guiding education right now, I wanted to find a way to teach the standards and make the students not feel gypped in some way."
Krista Gypton
Empire High teacher

Tucson Region

Teacher of Year nominees give students life experience

By Kimberly Matas
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.06.2007
Two Tucson teachers are among the five finalists for Arizona Teacher of the Year.
Charles Gallagher, a construction and drafting teacher at Santa Rita High School in the Tucson Unified School District, and Krista Gypton, an English teacher at Empire High School in the Vail School District, are competing with three other Arizona educators for the honor.
The winner will be announced Nov. 8 and receive $20,000, a laptop and other prizes, including a chance to meet President Bush and also take a trip to the International Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala.
A third Tucsonan, Sue Butler, who teaches English, journalism and drama at Howenstine High Magnet School in TUSD, was among the 10 finalists. She will receive a $1,000 prize.
The Arizona Teacher of the Year honor is bestowed by the Arizona Educational Foundation. In the award's 24-year history, Tucson-area teachers have taken top honors 12 times.
Gallagher, 47, has taught for 24 years, eight of them at Santa Rita. Recently he's won top state and regional honors in career technical education.
Gallagher provides his students with real-life construction experiences by collaborating with Habitat for Humanity.
"That's the best way for the kids to learn the industry, by building houses," he said. "What better way to learn construction than the real McCoy?"
Gypton, 31, has taught for more than seven years. This is her second year at Empire High. Like Gallagher, she believes hands-on learning complements classroom teaching.
Gypton introduces her students to real-world experiences by having them perform community service work as soon as they join her class. Twice a month her students visit a local retirement home to play games and sip root beer floats with the residents.
Next spring, Gypton is taking 16 students to South Africa to meet pen pals and work at an orphanage.
"With all the testing and things that are really guiding education right now, I wanted to find a way to teach the standards and make the students not feel gypped in some way, so they are not sitting in the classroom thinking, 'When's the bell? When's the next class?' " she said.
Though Butler, 44, didn't make the final five, she was among the top 10 nominees for Teacher of the Year. She's taught for 15 years, the last 2 1/2 at Howenstine.
Because Howenstine is a service-learning school, community involvement is built into the curriculum. But Butler requires her students to think beyond food drives and car washes.
Last spring the class completed its "Bear Hugs" project, inspired by a classmate fighting cancer. Students obtained a $10,000 federal grant to write a children's book. They printed 200 illustrated copies and delivered them — along with teddy bears — to children in local pediatric cancer wards.
They followed up their book project with a series of fund-raisers and donated $6,000 to the Make-a-Wish Foundation on behalf of their classmate.
Butler's students also won $7,000 in grant money to create a safety campaign for TUSD schools that encourages everyone to wear a seat belt.
Through these service projects, the students write to politicians and potential donors for support, honing their leadership and communications skills, Butler said.
"It's authentic, it's meaningful," she said. "When those students handed that check to Make-a-Wish, there's no assignment on the planet I could have given … that could lift them up and make them feel more empowered. They feel powerful, and we hope they leave better citizens and develop a little stronger voice for who they are and what they can do to change things."
● Contact reporter Kimberly Matas at 573-4191 or at kmatas@azstarnet.com.
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