MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Martinsburg South Middle school teacher Cynthia Evarts has been announced as the 2019 Berkeley County Teacher of the Year.
With 35 years of experience, Evarts says the biggest changes she’s faced came to her teaching style, and the use of technology in the classroom.
“I would just handwrite my lesson plans and put things on chalkboards, and then it went to whiteboards. Now, I’m uploading lessons onto Schoology or Google Classroom and the kids are a lot more sophisticated in how they access the information.”
Evarts spoke on ‘Panhandle Live’ heard on WEPM & WCST weekday mornings at 9.
As for many, technology was a learning curve for Evarts, but she seized the opportunity to learn more and use it to her advantage. Currently, she is leading the robotics program in both Orchard View Intermediate School and Martinsburg South Middle School, but Evarts admits she is not an expert, finding her most important lesson was learning when to say, ‘I don’t know’.
“The secret is, I don’t know much about it. I let the kids learn and they teach me. As a coach, you just have to be willing to say ‘I don’t know but how can we find this out together’.”
In total Evarts remains not only a passionate teacher, but an avid learner and advocate for children willing to take the next step and do their very best. She wants her students to remember her as a teacher who truly cared, and pushed them a little bit further to see what they could do.
Story by Panhandle News Network’s Melanie Miller