June 3, 2005

EvergreenTeacher of the Month

Shirley Madsen’s kindergarten class recently earned a visit from Sharkie, the San Jose Sharks mascot, for the number of books they read each month. Sharkie greets Madsen.

Shirley Madsen

The appreciative parents of kindergarteners attending Tom Matsumoto Elementary School nominated Shirley Madsen as the Evergreen Times Teacher of the Month for June.

In fact, Evergreen resident Ling Chung suggested “if you have a Teacher of the Year, I’d like to nominate Mrs. Madsen for that too.” Chung praised Madsen’s tremendous energy and individual focus given to each and every one of her students.

“She doesn’t treat the entire class the same way, she targets each individual and brings each one to their fullness,” explained Chung. “My daughter was pruned from reading very easy books to chapter books in just a few months in her class. She is the best teacher.”

Margaret Lee, who pointed out that Madsen’s class read more than 1,300 books in April, agreed that Madsen accomplishes so much with each and every one of her students. 

“Mrs. Madsen is an experienced, dedicated and devoted teacher,” said Lee. “Her philosophy has been not to just teach to the norm, but to aim high and challenge each child to reach their full potential. She is not just teaching the children academics, but also teaching them how to interact with each other with courtesy and respect.”

Lee said that her son couldn’t stand having anything sticky on his fingers in the beginning of the year, but for Mother’s Day, he made her a beautiful finger-painted handprint. “I don’t only see the growth in my own son’s development, but because I help in her class once a week, I see how she is capable of helping each child by tailoring to their [specific] needs. The environment she provides in her classroom is so stimulating and engaging, that even the most ‘distractible’ children are engaged.”

According to Lee, Madsen has endless amounts of energy, and her students love to come to school. “If you visit her classroom, you will see that she must have four sets of eyes and hands. Her brain is perfectly capable of making contact switches within Pico seconds to be able to interact and communicate with each child based on their personality and needs.”

Lee also commended Madsen’s ability to motivate her students to learn with the live music she provides almost every day as she accompanies her class on an electronic piano.

Brian Truong, a former student of Madsen’s, said, “I LOVED the music and the singing the best … I miss kindergarten.”

Addresses special needs
The parents of a student with special needs feel that Madsen is an extremely responsible teacher. Their son had trouble controlling his behavior and had “attention deficit” problems in the classroom.

To ensure every child will move into first grade smoothly, Madsen explained, among other things, how a child’s diet can influence his/her behavior. To enhance parent/teacher interaction, she devised a “Star Chart” system to keep the parents informed of their child’s daily performance—not a weekly or monthly summary—but every school day since early October 2004 when she first notified them of their child’s behavior.

“With her help and our cooperation, our son has made, in our view, striking progress over time,” said one of the parents. “We strongly feel such commitment and enthusiasm toward a student must have come from an educator who has genuine conviction in the quality of teaching and overall well-being of his/her pupils. We feel extremely lucky to have a teacher like Mrs. Madsen.”

Accelerated Reader program
Iram Jamil, whose daughter attends Madsen’s class, lauded Madsen for her teaching methods, both academically and socially.

“Mrs. Madsen has not only encouraged my daughter’s academic progress, but she also promoted her learning curve,” said Jamil.

Madsen recognized that some of her students were reading well above kindergarten level, and to avoid holding them back, she worked with the afternoon kindergarten teacher, Kelly Cimoli, to create an Accelerated Reader program tailored to these children. She now has children in her class reading at the second grade level and beyond.

“I am truly grateful for this acknowledgment, since I have been working with my daughter for quite a while to make sure she excelled in reading—something I truly believe will help her throughout her education as well as her personal life,” added Jamil.

Jamil also appreciates Madsen’s disciplinarian efforts to teach her kindergartners how to follow rules, behave and use their manners.

“As a parent, it is difficult to understand just how hard a teacher has to work to teach a classroom full of kids,” continued Jamil. “As parents, we are exhausted by the end of the day taking care of our two kids. However, multiply that 10 times and you understand the enthusiasm and energy it takes to teach a full class—not to mention the extra time and money that is spent to make sure the kids benefit from all of the activities and holidays that are celebrated.”

Jamil recalled volunteering in Madsen’s classroom one morning around Easter and learned that Madsen and her husband boiled 40 eggs the night before to make sure that each child could make his/her own Easter egg.

“Mrs. Madsen thought nothing of it, since it is part of her job to ensure that these kinds of things get done. I, on the other hand, thought about how much time she had to take out of her own family’s time to enable this to happen,” added Jamil. “I am really glad that my daughter has had the opportunity to start off her academic career with such a great teacher.”