Friday, May 31, 2002
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Friday, May 31, 2002 |
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Teacher of the year named The Fulton County School System announced that Dr. Susan Messer, a choral and general music teacher at Ridgeview Middle School, has been selected as 2002-03 Fulton County Teacher of the Year. Associate Superintendent Dr. Barbara Hill and Ridgeview Principal Barbara McGuire surprised Dr. Messer and the Ridgeview faculty and students during a school assembly May 20. Dr. Messer was selected as Ridgeview's Teacher of the Year this spring and then was chosen as the Middle School Teacher of the Year. She was named the district winner from among two other Fulton County finalists Elizabeth Hunnings from Manning Oaks Elementary School and Dell Pamplin from Chattahoochee High School. Hunnings, a National Board Certified Teacher, was selected as Elementary Teacher of the Year, and Pamplin, who has won state and national accolades for his work on the Active Riparian Commensal Habitat Project, was named High School Teacher of the Year. Dr. Messer now represents the Fulton County School System in the Georgia Teacher of the Year program, which will announce a winner next spring. Before coming to Ridgeview Middle School in 1998, Dr. Messer taught graduate music courses at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary for six years. She graduated with a degree in Music Education from Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., and received her Master's of Church Music degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. She earned her doctorate in music education from Louisiana State University. In her Teacher of the Year application, Dr. Messer said she felt a calling to teach. "At a young age, my calling was not only to be a teacher, but, specifically, a music teacher. The certainty of that calling was validated through the joy of directing young choirs at church as a high school student and through directing childhood peers in musical productions," she said. "In college, an inward tug-of-war constantly challenged my choice of major music education because I felt that I was capable of a number of career choices. However, the inward tug to be a music teacher always won." Dr. Messer credits her experience as a music education student to her success in helping students learn. She considers her teaching to be like a performance and structures her lessons to be entertaining and informative. "I want students to have fun as they learn within a balanced learning climate. If I create an uncomfortable learning climate one that is too strict students might be too nervous to learn," she said. "If I create an unprofessional climate for students, they will be too unfocused to learn. The final goal should be one where students are expected to be their best and where high, yet attainable goals for their success have been set." Dr. Messer says that one major issue facing public education is the perception that those outside of the educational field have of public education. Also, the current trend of using test scores to rank and evaluate schools either can be devastating to a community, she says, or be a catalyst for school change. She challenges supporters of public education to voice their opinions to the media through editorials and radio talk shows to "broadcast the success" of public education. She also challenges other public educators to make every effort to display a high level of professionalism both inside and outside the classroom. "The general population needs to perceive teachers as professionals who care for every aspect of the success of students," she said. Despite her busy academic schedule, Dr. Messer remains active in the community by volunteering as the director for her church's children's choir and by singing in the adult choir. Her experiences have allowed her to travel to Italy, where she performed during high mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican before hundreds of tourists. She also serves as the producer and director of Ridgeview's annual spring musical theater production. Dr. Messer, Mrs. Hunnings and Mr. Pamplin will be formally honored at the Fulton County School System's Employee of the Year Celebration December 6, which recognizes each Teacher of the Year and School/Support Professional of Year from each school and central administrative building, and a Business Partner of the Year.
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