Stripling Math Teacher Gets State Award

The Instructional Math Coach at in Norcross, Kathy Spruiell, was recently awarded the top honor for state mathematics teaching, the 2011 Excellence in Mathematics Teaching Award for elementary school. She has been an educator for 19 years and said she was selected for the award was partly given to her because of her work going above and beyond to helping other educators in math.

Spruiell has presented to her colleagues at the annual Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference and also maintains a website that gives other math instructors free access to teaching resources online.

She has a list of about 1,000 other educators that she emails with information about her free workshops she conducts. 

Spruiell said she was an oldest child and was always a nurturer in her family, so the desire to teach just came naturally to her from a young age. “I always knew I wanted to be a teacher,” she said. “It is very intuitive, very natural for me.”

Also, she admits that she didn’t always love math in school because she could never get to the bottom of why math works the way it does. “Once I decided to be a teacher I knew that I always wanted to be able to help my students understand the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the math they were exploring,” she said in a GCPS news release. 

Spruiell said that she thinks that success of her classes lies in the fun atmosphere she creates as well at the personalized attention her students get. She said she “loves it when a plan comes together.” Some students may be struggling and some may be flying, she said, but there’s a moment when they get it, a moment when they start to teach her the answer, that is the reason she loves her job. 

“Then its great to help them celebrate,” she said.