By Marley Seaman
Izzo ended her 14th year at Malverne's Howard T. Herber Middle School with a singular honor: The state Department of Education named her the New York State Teacher of the Year for 2007. The recognition has made the fifth-grade teacher a lot busier ‹ she says she has to spend an hour every day answering e-mails from other teachers, and she has had a variety of speaking engagements ‹ but she isn't letting the notoriety change her approach in the classroom.
"My message can basically be boiled down to 'high expectation results in high achievement,'" Izzo said.
Her recent achievements and workload haven't reduced her infectious enthusiasm, and she constantly encourages her students. She also has a talent for blending that encouragement into her lessons while keeping 10- and 11-year-olds interested ‹ not the easiest task in the world.
Izzo began one recent class period by asking her students about their definition of the word "goal," which they had discussed the previous day. She then segued into a reading of the book "More Than Anything Else" by Marie Bradby, a short story from the life of Booker T. Washington. In the story, 9-year-old Booker works all day as a salt packer, but wants to learn to read more than anything else in the world. As the story progresses, he takes his first steps toward that goal. Izzo kept her students listening as she did the various voices of the story's characters, and then quickly moved from the story into a short lesson on Washington's life.
That, in turn, became a lesson about the need for setting goals. Izzo began by telling her students one of her own objectives: making sure they all pass. But that wasn't enough, and she told them it was important that they challenge themselves, offering her own goal for the year as an example. "[Passing] is too low for me," she told them. "I set my goals higher than that. I want [you] to be at the top of the class, A-number one." She then told her students what a valedictorian is, just as she sometimes discusses A.P. courses with them. She said she wanted them to be prepared to take those courses in a few years.
When she was done speaking, it was the students' turn. Izzo passed out gold stars and asked them to write down at least one goal for the school year. Most of them wound up with several; one listed half a dozen. Some of them wanted to improve at math, while others wanted to be better musicians, meteorologists, or presidents. One said he wanted to "conquer" the fifth grade, which meets with Izzo's approval. That's ambitious enough to please the teacher.
As class concluded, she had her students tell themselves, "I am the greatest thing since sliced bread!"
The approach inspires loyalty from her former students. On this particular day, about a dozen of them streamed into Izzo's room 327 after the final bell. Although the weekend was coming, some of her current students also stuck around. "She's very nice," said Nia Pierre, a new fifth-grader. "She's very encouraging."
Izzo also has high expectations for herself, and they have paid off. "I just want to get better every day, every year," she said. That sounds rather modest considering what she has already achieved: Herber named her its Teacher of the Year last year, and she is a former Town of Hempstead Teacher of the Year as well.
She also tries to improve other teachers, as co-president of the Malverne Teachers Center, which provides resources and education for teachers. Sandwiched between all those commitments is her work at Adelphi University, where she teaches adult literacy classes.
Her style, she insists, is not unique. "All teachers try to get the children fully engaged, so that they¹re taking a lot of the ownership for this learning," she said. She contrasts that approach with the "chalk and talk" approach her own teachers employed. They required students to do a lot of copying and memorizing, but Izzo hopes her style makes kids care more about improving their classwork.
Herber Principal David Zimbler said that Izzo was the first teacher he met after being hired three years ago. They spoke a few times, but he was even more impressed when he saw her in the classroom. "The kids wanted to answer, wanted to comment," he remembered. "They weren¹t afraid to raise their hands." He also praised her relentlessness in trying to improve her teaching, and her "catching" enthusiasm.
"The children believe her," Zimbler said. "When a child believes, they can accomplish whatever they truly want."
Comments about this story? MSeaman@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 205.
