SAN ANTONIO — From volleyball to soccer, on the field or in the classroom, Kati Muha seems to fit right in. 18 years as coach and teacher, Muha says being around kids is exactly where she is meant to be. Right now she’s the Social Studies Department chair at Dobie Junior High School at Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD.
Muha won the KENS 5 EXCEL Award for excellence in education. Her award includes a $1,000 check from KENS 5 partner Credit Human. Anchor Sarah Forgany presented her with the award and shares why Muha is loved by her students.
“Let's go toilet paper the cafeteria.”
Those were Kati Muha’s exact words to her students earlier this school year and she wasn’t joking. She even showed them how to do it.
“You’ve got to unroll it a little bit and then toss it and let it like fly over there," Muha recalled telling her students as she showed them how to wrap the school’s cafeteria.
Sounds like an unusual class conversation but yet it was something about that chaotic scene that brought history to life for her 8th graders.
"We could also tax toilet paper," Muha said.
She let her students turn the Boston Tea Party into The Dobie T-P Party at Dobie middle school.
“They were throwing boxes of tea over ships into the Boston Harbor but we went over the balcony right outside the cafeteria and we just started throwing toilet paper and people were catching it and throwing it back,” one 8th grader said adding, “It's just something I will remember for a long time.”
Mission accomplished for Muha, saying they wrapped up this chapter of the American Revolution with a victory.
Come testing time, she hopes they’ll be prepared because historically she says students have struggled and scored low in this particular topic.
"I never wanted social studies to have a bad rap.”
So when kids walk into her classroom, she doesn’t hold back and she’s all about the theatrics, "Yeah, yeah, I like for there to be some drama."
Always some sort if action in her classroom, the way she says she sees history. “It's a movie, you know, like, I love to watch documentaries. My husband makes fun of me, but I just really enjoy getting into the stories of people."
Muha enjoys retelling those stories and she does it in the most relatable way if you ask her students, “It's just like one big discussion and then it helps me understand it.”
Even when it’s a comprehensive essay, or drawing out instructions, students say Muha includes a variety of learning styles into one lesson making it much more fun and easier to remember.
Muha says being around kids is exactly where she belongs, “It's always been easy for me to talk to kids. If you have a bunch of adults in a room. I don't like to get up and talk.”
It’s not just kids who think Muha is brilliant. Ally Peterson was Muha’s student teacher and has been under her wings for years. "I call her my mom,” Peterson said.
A mom, mentor, and department chair, Muha has helped lead her social studies teaching staff to great success.
“She's incredible,” Peterson said. Though Muha is quick to give other teachers the credit saying without them their school year projects wouldn’t be as successful or entertaining.
Together you can say they’re the perfect allies, making for many victorious battles and for a great photo roll that now includes class field trips to New York, Washington D.C. and Boston, where students get to see the world through their own lens.
“She cares about our success,” said one 8th grader adding, “I think that it’s important for a teacher to make us remember her in scenarios.”
For Muha, it’s important the kids see social studies as something to learn from, something they enjoy talking about and something they can even use one day.
“There are things we can do in the class that will encourage the kids and help them to see how it’s a lifelong skill that they really need to hang on to and it's not as boring as they think it is.”
Hopefully she says they can put their personal stamp on it and may be even go on to use those skills to make their own history.
"I'm not here to tell them what to believe or who's right and who's wrong. I'm just here to equip them to figure it out for themselves."
This is the KENS 5 EXCEL Awards 25th years partnering with Credit Human to honor local teachers. If you’d like to watch past winners, click on kens5.com/EXCEL.