July 28, 2022
Jill Honeycutt, Foster Elementary; 2022-2023 District and Elementary Teacher of the Year
Foster Elementary
Jill Honeycutt knows the importance of connecting with her students on both an educational and emotional level. As a kindergarten teacher, Honeycutt does her best to understand her students’ minds and hearts.
Honeycutt has been teaching for seven years at Foster Elementary. She began teaching first grade after graduation, before taking a 15-year break to raise her family. Since returning to Foster, Honeycutt has taught pre-k and has now taught kindergarten for two years.
To support the physical and emotional needs of her students, Honeycutt created a resource corner in her room, complete with Kleenex, snacks, and tools to help students regulate their emotions. “In kindergarten, sometimes they get these really big emotions and they don’t know what to do with that,” Honeycutt said. “So when they get upset, they can handle that themselves, versus being really upset and not knowing what to do with those feelings.”
Honeycutt encourages her students’ desire to be global citizens by helping them understand the communities they belong to and how they can contribute to them. This empowers her students to recognize the ways their actions affect their community. “I think kids naturally have in them that desire to help and make a difference,” Honeycutt said. “I think tapping into that by picking up trash on the playground or noticing that Ms. Maria cleans our tables, they’re able to see that small things make a big difference.”
Helping students learn from their mistakes and move on is one thing Honeycutt says can help mathem succeed in the future. “Sometimes kids can come in and experience difficulty and they don’t know what to do with that,” Honeycutt said. “If you prepare kids to hit a mistake, to learn from it, to move on and get to know themselves as learners, they can succeed.”
Nathanael Wooley, Summer Creek High School; 2022-2023 Secondary Teacher of the Year
Summer Creek High School
Nathanael Wooley prides himself on his ability to engage students in World History. Whether he’s involving rock music videos in his lessons about the Mongol Empire or tying in sports to discussions about Ukraine, Wooley ensures that his students enjoy every second they are in his classroom.
Wooley has been in education for over 12 years, and has been teaching at Summer Creek for nine years. Wooley started off as a chemistry teacher for three years, and has been teaching AP World History for six years.
One of Wooley’s main goals is to get students involved and engaged in class. “If I’m not enjoying my own lesson, the students have no chance of enjoying the lesson,” Wooley said. “There should be some laughter, some enjoyment somewhere along the way.”
He does this by connecting with his students on a personal level to make them feel more comfortable sharing in class. “If I have a kid who’s into four-wheelers, I may ask him about that so he feels more emotionally invested from the get go,” Wooley said.
To help his students become better global citizens, Wooley encourages his students to make connections between their own interests and world events. To Wooley, global citizenship and cultural awareness means that his students can assess the quality and purpose of sources, considering the motive and point of view sources are written from. “These kids live in a world where they have news at their fingertips from all sorts of sources,” Wooley said. “For them to start asking those questions makes them a better citizen.”
Wooley said he hopes his students walk away from his class with a more enthusiastic approach to learning. “I want them to know that learning can be fun,” Wooley said. “I want them to approach not just history, but learning with more of an optimistic outlook.”