By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
In an era when social media is king, Kathy Wagoner is trying to get kids to understand the power of the written word.
According to one of her students, she has been able to do that.
“Mrs. Wagoner is the only teacher I’ve ever had that has made me excited to write a five-page paper, ” Abbey Oborny, a senior at Hays High School, said in her nomination for Wagoner for Hays Post Teacher of the Month.
“The way she teaches also keeps me wanting to learn more,” Oborny said. “We read a couple poems recently and were going over the theme and the meaning of them, and the way Mrs.Wagoner taught us to analyze them was amazing.
“I can see now easily the meanings of stories, why the author uses the literary devices that they use and how important writing is. I’ve actually used this new skill while listening to songs and it has made me realize how many metaphors and parallel structures the songs contain.”
Wagoner said she engages her students by “showing them they have a voice and they have control of their mind and the way they want to present themselves … showing them the power of the language and the power of punctuation.”
She tries to urge them to be more confident in experimenting with writing styles.
“I tell them in this class, right away, they are not writing for themselves, they are writing for the readers,” she said. “You need to make sure you communicate what you want them to feel and think.”
Wagoner said she gets along great with kids, but the first thing you need to know about young adults is you need to respect them.
“Just because they haven’t had the experiences I’ve had in life doesn’t mean their opinions don’t matter,” she said.
Wagoner does some writing herself. She was written quite a bit of poetry. She started a novel but said there is never time to work on her own project.
Wagoner, 58, has been a teacher for 28 years, all at Hays High.
Growing up in Oskaloosa, a town of 1,000, north of Lawrence, she said knew she wanted to teach by the third grade.
“It was in my blood,” she said. “I always wanted to do it.”
She received her bachelor’s of science in Education with distinction from the University of Kansas in 1990. She received her master’s degree in English from FHSU in 1999. In 2000, she passed the boards to receive a 10-year license as a National Board Certified teacher in Adolescence and Young Adulthood/English Language Arts. She renewed that license in 2010 and was just notified of her latest renewal, which will be good through 2030.
“I appreciate how [the kids] keep my mind young,” she said.
Wagoner said she was a little intimidated her first year at HHS as it was so much larger than what she grew up with—a rural school of 120 students.
“But when I got in the classroom, there were still just 25 kids,” she said. “Within the classroom, you are creating your own environment — style of family. That’s how I looked at it, so I wasn’t overwhelmed by everything.”
After her students leave her classes and graduate, she said she hopes they have “the confidence to tackle any issue or opportunity that they run across — that they can verbally and in writing communicate with others.”
Wagoner said social media is changing her students and making that more difficult.
“They just don’t want to read,” she said. “They don’t understand the power of the written word. They need to be able to read in order to be sure they are not being manipulated by others, and they can truly go after the opportunities that they desire. Without the ability to comprehend what you read, they are doing themselves an injustice.”
She continued, “Nowadays with the technology that is available to them. The instant gratification and how they seek it — I wouldn’t say all of them — but patience has been put on a back burner. Tolerance of others seems to be on a back burner because it is more about self-gratification. The social media gives them that.
“My students tell me, ‘I don’t want to spend 15 minutes reading a book or 20 minutes.’ One of my students said to me the other day, ‘Why do you have to make it so hard?’ I said, ‘All I want you to do is think. How is that hard?’ ”
Wagoner said it is a challenge finding books the students desire to read and will also challenge them.
Students want escape fiction. It is easy to read, ttakes you out of the environment, and you don’t have to think to read it. If you give them literary fiction, they have to ponder what they are reading, Wagoner said.
“It makes them think about the human condition,” she said, “and sometimes they don’t like to think about that.
“You always hear that, ‘I am one person. What am I supposed to do about it?’ ” she said. “Then you can use social media and show how one person can change the way people think. There are benefits along with the issues.”
Wagoner will admit that teaching English is not all about English.
“No matter what content area you’re teaching, when you are teaching high school, you are teaching the whole person,” she said.
Her students see this too, as Oborny’s nomination shows.
“Most importantly while teaching all of us thousands of things (and never complaining about it) she inspires me to be a better person,” she said, “to have a more positive outlook and as her board says every day, ‘be present,’ which according to her means to be fully there, to live in the moment, and to keep your attention on the right things.”
Wagoner is also mentoring up-and-coming teachers. Last month’s Hays Post Teacher of the Month, Jaici Simon, Hay Middle School English teacher said Wagoner has been a role model for her.
“It warms you and humbles you at the same time,” Wagoner said. “I felt very humbled after I read that article. Then I thanked God and said, ‘You’ve set me on the right path.’ I ask Him all of the time to make sure that I am doing what you want me to do in the classroom to help these kids grow and be where they need in their lives.”