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 Tanya Marcinkewicz, CHEP ’86, said she always knew she’d grow up to be a teacher.
“When I was a child, I absolutely loved school,” she said. “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.” Her success in her chosen field was formally recognized this year, 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 said recently 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. She’s spent the last 13 years at Harlan, where her specialty is science education.
“I know sixth grade is considered a difficult age, but I really like teaching these kids,” Marcinkewicz said. “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 said her students especially like science, with its emphasis on experimentation, and she has incorporated a great deal of hands-on learning into her teaching.
Marcinkewicz’s route to the statewide title began with her selection as her school’s teacher of the year, after which she competed with her counterparts from the other schools in the 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.
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,” according to 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.”
When Marcinkewicz addresses community groups, business leaders, legislators and educational organizations as teacher of the year, she said 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 said. “I just want people to know how hard teachers work and how seriously they take their job.”
May 17, 2002
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