Tanya Marcinkewicz always knew she'd follow in the footsteps of her parents and grandmother and grow up to be a teacher. What she never expected, she says, is that she would fall in love with teaching one of public education's least-loved age groups--sixth graders.

Marcinkewicz, CHEP '86, has been working exclusively in sixth grade since she graduated from UD, where she had initially set her sights on teaching kindergarten. Her success in the classroom was formally recognized in October, when she won Delaware's Teacher of the Year Award for 2001-02.

"My first classroom practicum as a UD student was in sixth grade right here at this school," Marcinkewicz says from her classroom at David W. Harlan Elementary School in Wilmington's Brandywine School District. "Even though I thought I wanted to teach kindergarten, I was hooked right away on sixth grade. Later, when I had student teaching experiences in the younger grades, I just didn't like them as much."

As luck would have it, a sixth-grade job was open in the Brandywine district when she graduated, and she's been teaching there ever since, including the last 13 years at Harlan. Her specialty is science education, although she also teaches one class of language arts each day.

"When I was a child, I absolutely loved school," Marcinkewicz says. "I loved going to school. I played school at home, and I had great role models because my grandmother and my parents were music teachers. I never thought about doing anything else."

Marcinkewicz chose to attend UD because of the flexibility of the undergraduate education program, which allowed her to earn certification in three fields--elementary and special education and kindergarten. Until that first practicum at Harlan, she says, she expected to spend her career teaching wide-eyed 5-year-olds, not rebellion-prone adolescents.

"I know sixth grade is considered a difficult age, but I really like teaching these kids," Marcinkewicz says. "They're still young enough to be enthusiastic about learning, but they're old enough to be able to handle some higher-level thinking skills, which makes my job enjoyable and challenging."

She says her students especially like science, with its emphasis on experimentation, and she has incorporated a great deal of hands-on learning into her teaching. Her thesis for her master's degree, which she earned in 1992 from Iona College in New York, concerned the use of hands-on instruction in the sixth-grade chemistry curriculum.

Over the years, Marcinkewicz also has been involved in education beyond her own classroom teaching, with her many activities noted by the Delaware Department of Education in announcing her selection as Teacher of the Year. She has served on the statewide standard-setting committee for the Delaware Student Testing Program in eighth-grade science and on the Strategic Planning Committee for School Improvement at the district and state levels, is a coach for the Science Olympiad and has been a mentor for new teachers and a cooperating teacher for eight UD student teachers.

In addition, she works with the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University, teaching professional-development courses to other science teachers, and she serves on the Clinical Studies Advisory Board, looking for ways to improve practicum experiences in UD's educational methods courses.

"I enjoy all those professional activities," she says, "but I don't want to do any of that full time. I want to stay in the classroom."

Marcinkewicz's route to her statewide title began with her selection as Harlan Elementary's teacher of the year, after which she competed with her counterparts from the other schools in the Brandywine School District. After winning the district title, she and representatives from Delaware's other 18 school districts attended a dinner in October, at which Gov. Ruth Ann Minner named the statewide winner.

"After hearing Tanya's name announced, I had no doubt the Teacher of the Year is truly the best of the best," Harlan principal Anita Thorpe says. "I cannot think of anyone who deserves the title more."

Competition for the honor was an active process, requiring the contenders--who were initially nominated by colleagues within their schools--to submit portfolios of their work, biographical information, essays on assigned topics and letters of reference. In addition, they were interviewed and observed in their classrooms by state education department representatives.

"The selection process is designed to find that teacher who is most representative of the entire teaching profession," says William W. Barkley, CHEP '72M, '86Ed.D., facilitator for the Teacher of the Year Program and Delaware's 1978 statewide winner. "It is obvious that this year's candidate, and all the candidates since the program began in 1965, truly represent the best of our profession."

In her new role, Marcinkewicz, who received a $5,000 grant to use for her students and two personal grants totaling an additional $5,000, is addressing community groups, business leaders, legislators and educational organizations to discuss Delaware's schools. She also represented the state in the national Teacher of the Year Program, sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers and Scholastic Inc.

She says she has one message she most wants to convey. "I'm surrounded every day by dedicated teachers--teachers who come to work early and stay late and devote themselves to their students and their profession," she says. "When I went to our district reception and the state Teacher of the Year reception, I met so many other dedicated teachers. I just want people to know how hard teachers work and how seriously they take their jobs."

Marcinkewicz sees recent and ongoing changes in Delaware's public education system as positive, and says she enjoys the challenges of the state's new, rigorous standards for students and teachers. Those new challenges, she says, point out the need for teachers to have continuing professional development to learn new ways to improve their instructional techniques.

"Every child learns in a different way, and every child deserves a quality lesson," she says. "Teachers must be willing to try different strategies, and to help them do that, they need quality professional development. I think we all need to focus on the concept that there are multiple paths to learning."

As for her own career, Marcinkewicz says she still loves school.

"One of the things I like best about teaching is that the job is always changing. The curriculum and the strategies change--and, even beyond that, the students are always different," she says. "Every day is different, and I don't know if there are too many other jobs where you can say that."

--Ann Manser, AS '73, CHEP '73

Blue Hen teachers

Of the 19 Delaware teachers--one from each of the state's school districts--who competed for the statewide 2001-02 Teacher of the Year honor, 10 are UD alumni.

Sandra C. Baker, CHEP '94, Banneker Elementary School, Milford

Beverly A. Beck, CHEP '69, Clayton Elementary School, Clayton

Patricia Eskridge, AS '81A, Seaford Central Elementary School, Seaford

Carol L. Hackett, CHEP '88, Conrad Middle School, Wilmington

Kathy Hudson, CHEP '71, Lord Baltimore Elementary School, Ocean View

Joanne W. Jones, CHEP '71, Woodbridge Elementary School, Bridgeville

Pamela Lottero-Perdue, EG '95, CHEP '99M, Hodgson Vocational-Technical High School, Newark

Tanya Marcinkewicz, CHEP '86, Harlan Elementary School, Wilmington

Debbie Pope, CHEP '92, Lake Forest North Elementary School, Felton

Elly Schmalz, AS '78M, Gauger-Cobbs Middle School, Newark