SAN ANTONIO — “Good morning, sorry to interrupt your classroom for a few minutes,” said KENS 5 Anchor Sarah Forgany as she walked into Eve Thompson’s classroom at Alamo Heights ISD’s Woodridge Elementary.
Thompson looked puzzled at first but when she finally figured out what was happening, you could see she was clearly trying to hold back tears. “I’m blown away,” Thompson said.
Credit Human presented Thompson with a $2,000 check as part of the KENS 5 EXCEL Award surprise. Her students, colleagues and school district staff joined in on the celebration.
Thompson said she was overwhelmed because the award is a reflection of more than just her work.
“My mom was an educator for over 30 years and we lost her back in 2010 to cancer and I think, in a way, that I hope that she sees that I make her proud," she said.
Woodridge Elementary Principal Sean Reno said the kids tell him day in and day out, that they love how Thompson makes them feel in her classroom.
“If you ever want the honest truth ask a fifth grader their opinion of an adult. You’ve got to see it right?” Reno said, referring to the kids swarming Thompson the entire time. “It’s authentic.”
Before we could even ask the kids ourselves, they were pushing us and our camera out of the way to run up and hug their teacher.
Thompson teaches English Language Arts at Woodridge. She refers to her fifth grade classroom as "a happy place,” one that still brings her as much joy as it did eleven years ago when she first started teaching at the elementary school.
“Little letters and drawings and cards,” Thompson showed us a corner of her classroom decked out with nothing but love from past students. “Little things that kind of just, you know, brighten my day.”
Thompson is a ray of sunshine for her students. They say she’s like family.
"She reminds me of my mom,” said one of her fifth graders standing in a group of kids who couldn’t wait to share with us how they really felt about their teacher. Another chimed in, saying her classroom “feels like home.”
Just like a mom, Thompson knows how to set the tone and put them at ease, "I want them to feel confident,” she said. “I want them to have a passion for reading.”
She creates that passion in them by doing a variety of things. The kids were quick to note her talent in telling stories.
"I like how Miss Thompson voices it (a book) so when it's like a deeper person's voice, her voice goes lower.” Her kids say she makes books come to life, “I feel like I'm in the book, like she makes it feel like that you're literally in the book.”
Her animated skills particularly help her students who’ve struggled with reading for years, one girl telling us Thompson has helped her not only improve, but also turned her into a reading enthusiast "I had dyslexia since kindergarten and I honestly, truly do not like reading but I like it now and how she reads to us."
It’s not just Thompson’s voice that makes them feel comfortable, it’s her choices of how she teaches them that gives them confidence.
“That's one thing that I promise our students each year is that I'm not going to force them to read in a whole group setting. They always volunteer to read out loud. I don't put them on the spot," Thompson said.
And when things get difficult, Thompson says she doesn’t pull back instead, her lessons shift “teaching them perseverance to keep going.”
To keep them entertained, Thompson says she likes to change things up. “We have to be able to work in the digital world but at the same time, we have to have that balance. You know, when they come in and we do a daily reading, it's paper, pencil, cursive," she said.
After reading novels, she finds a variety of ways to test their comprehension of the material. “I create questions that review what we've read and kind of check their comprehension and understanding of what we've read,” she said.
One of their fun project is creating movie trailers about the books they read. They use editing apps like iMovie and make their novels come to life.
They also play comprehension games that the kids couldn’t wait to share with us. "We do like these games so she can know what we know about the books," they said.
When they win game, they get a jolly rancher. It may sound small but to her kids, it’s something they say they look forward to. They can’t wait to get to reading class because of Thompson.
“She deserved it (the award) because she’s the best teacher. She’s a good teacher,” they said as they huddled over in a group excited to talk about Thompson.
As for their teacher, Thompson says her goal is to gain trust and when she does, they begin to listen with excitement.
“I think just being consistent, being myself. I think that kids can tell right away whether you're being real with them or whether you're kind of putting on an act," Thompson said.
Once again, it comes back to creating a “happy place” and an environment that fosters comfort and love.
Thompson says kids have always been her “why,” the reason she comes to class day after day with a smile on her face.
“They made me feel at home. It's peaceful. It's happy. It's just something that I look forward to every day and I get up being able to come and be with them."