‘Stellar’ teacher rewarded for creative thinking

 

On a chilly morning in late November, third-grade teacher Stephanie Arturet walked into her classroom and was met with a big surprise.[quote_box_right]“I have students of all ability levels and I just really want to make sure that all of the kids can get all of the information that I can give them because they are like little sponges and I want them to soak it up.” — Stephanie Arturet[/quote_box_right]

School staff, students and news reporters greeted her as representatives from Fiesta Bowl Charities presented Arturet with a $5,000 check for her Santa Cruz Elementary School classroom.

Arturet had applied for the grant months before and was shocked to learn she won.

“I enjoyed the surprise. It definitely caught me off guard, but that day I walked around in a fog; it took a while for the adrenaline to fade,” Arturet said a few weeks later.

In January, Arturet will receive the funds she will use to purchase cutting-edge technology and flexible seating for her classroom.

Currently, students are seated in traditional chairs while at their desks, but Arturet wants wobble stools and floor cushions to support children’s unique learning styles.

“Not everyone is going to learn just sitting in a desk listening to the teacher talk, and so the more teachers can mix it up and vary how they’re providing the information, the more experience they can give those kids,” Arturet said.

The largest investment purchased through the grant will be a technology board, which resembles a “giant tablet” that will provide students a new way to learn. It’s an expensive gadget Arturet and her students couldn’t access otherwise.

This is not the first opportunity the teacher has taken to promote creativity in her classroom. Last year, Arturet applied for and won fitness tracker wristbands from UNICEF. The more steps the students took, the more food sent to children in developing countries.

“If you can find something out there that teaches global citizenship in a way that hasn’t been approached before, why not introduce them to those new opportunities and those new reasons to learn something?” Arturet said.

Santa Cruz Principal Loraine Conley called Arturet a “stellar teacher” who embraces the “no cookie-cutter classroom” philosophy inside the school.

“She does creative, real-life projects with students. When you walk into her classroom, all students are engaged in the learning,” Conley said.

Midway through her 16th year in education, Arturet came to Santa Cruz last year after teaching first and second grade in the West Valley.

For more than a decade, Arturet taught at the Pendergast Elementary School District in Phoenix. It’s also where the Arizona native attended grade school years before.

But then love brought her to Maricopa.

Arturet decided to move south to be with her then-boyfriend, Andres, whom she recently married. The couple live in Maricopa with their children, Andres Jr. and Amelia.

The family has no plans of moving from the community anytime soon – giving Arturet more chances to create unique experiences for students inside her Santa Cruz classroom.

“I want to give them these opportunities because it’s just going to help them that much more,” Arturet said. “I have students of all ability levels and I just really want to make sure that all of the kids can get all of the information that I can give them because they are like little sponges and I want them to soak it up.”

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This story appears in the January issue of InMaricopa.