The following article was selected from the Internet Edition of the Chicago Tribune. To visit the site, point your browser to http://chicagotribune.com/. ----------- Chicago Tribune Article Forwarding---------------- Article forwarded by: Michael Lach Return e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Article URL: http://chicagotribune.com/news/local/article/0,1051,SAV-0102220370,00.html ---Forwarded article---------------- GOLDEN APPLE SHINES FOR 5 IN AREA By Maria Kantzavelos, Tribune Staff Writer. Tribune staff writer Stanley Ziemba contributed to this report. Jacqueline Gnant is a 26-year-old physics teacher at DuSable High School on Chicago's South Side whose pager number goes hand-in-hand with homework assignments. "She calls back fast, too," said junior Brian Battle, one of her students who pages Gnant after school when he finds himself stuck solving a physics problem. "We have her pager number, her e-mail address and she has a Web site," said student Brian Spears. It is nearly impossible to fail, they say, if Gnant is your teacher. "She makes sure we have it down pat," said junior April Hunt. Gnant and four other Chicago area teachers were named Wednesday as winners of this year's Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching. The Golden Apple Foundation, a Chicago-based non-profit organization, recognizes 10 teachers each year from Cook, DuPage and Lake Counties for their outstanding achievements in education. Five more teachers will get the news in surprise visits Thursday. Elizabeth Kirby, who teaches U.S. and African-American history at Kenwood Academy High School in Chicago, learned she won on Tuesday as she set out on a trip to Africa with her students. In its 16th year, the foundation received more than 1,200 nominations, said awards director Roxanne DeGraff. In addition to being honored at a gala in May at Chicago's Shakespeare Theater, winners receive an Apple computer, a semester sabbatical at Northwestern University, $2,500 and membership in the Golden Apple Academy of Educators, an organization that aims to develop and support programs to improve education. Gnant, the physics teacher with a beeper, joins the ranks of her mother, who is a 1989 Golden Apple Award winner. "When I found out about the nomination, I was jumping up and down," said Gnant, who has been teaching for four years. "When I won, I cried. It was like Publishers Clearinghouse." It was also a family affair for winner Murray Fisher, an educator for 26 years whose wife won the award in 1989. "For something like this to happen in a family once is a tremendous honor, but twice is just...this is really something," said Fisher. "To be selected out of all of that, well, I guess it's like winning an NBA championship." Fisher, 51, is a woodshop teacher in a busy classroom at Southside Occupation Academy in Chicago, where he helps 16-to 20-year-old students with cognitive disabilities acquire a vocational skill. Fisher's father was a cement finisher and his mother a schoolteacher. He said he knew he wanted to teach woodshop since he was in junior high school. But that's only part of his job. He takes his pupils on camping trips, brings jazz musicians into the classroom and has even built a ramp outside the home of a student with muscular dystrophy so the student could get to school. "It's ongoing, it's continuing. Murray is constantly looking for that extra something for the kids," said principal Judith Schroeder. Winner Tracy Van Duinen incorporates murals with his teaching of fine arts at Austin Community High School. He takes pride in the fact that his students have completed three major murals at the West Side school and not a speck of graffiti has surfaced on them from vandals. "They get to affect how the school looks," Van Duinen said. "They're using fine arts to take ownership in the school." During summer breaks, Van Duinen, 34, takes groups of students into the community to work on murals. "He has managed to get these young people really interested in art," said Larry Brown, assistant principal at Austin. "It's phenomenal. He's like the art messiah. He's an excellent motivator and they work their butts off for him." Erin Kelly, 50, who teaches accounting, business and Web page design to students at Tinley Park High School, on Wednesday became the first teacher from the southwest suburban high school to receive the Golden Apple Award. When Kelly, 50, talks about teaching, the enthusiasm flows. "I love and I'm challenged every day by what I do, including teaching accounting, which some people would describe as a very dry subject," she said. "I love and care very much about my students and derive tremendous satisfaction from watching them set attainable goals and then reaching those goals." -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
