- Gray's Woods Elementary
- Gray's Woods Elementary School
Lori Brown is Helping Inquisitive Minds
Lori Brown went from teaching multiplication to multiplying her teaching.
Brown, a learning enrichment/gifted support teacher at Park Forest Middle School, switched to a new role last fall after 23 years of math instruction. She joined a district-wide program that offers extra learning opportunities for students identified for enrichment and gifted education services.
Step into Brown’s room during LE times, and it’s clear that her horizons have expanded. She’s advising students building solar-powered model cars in one corner. Then she’s nearby assisting teams with constructing motorized cranes to move objects. Before the bell, she’s squeezing in explaining an enrichment math assignment or guiding an independent social studies project.
Each day brings a smorgasbord of experiences but the same joy — helping inquisitive minds pursue an array of talents and interests. As enthusiastically as her chalkboard display shows math puns, Brown has embraced nurturing exploration. She may joke about no longer being the expert in the room, but it’s been a pleasure relinquishing the title.
“I’m humbled every day when I meet these kids, how vast their knowledge is, how passionate they are about their subjects and their topics,” she says. “It’s amazing.”
By one measure, Brown and her students have meshed as well as the parts in some of their creations. During afternoon periods designated for school-wide exploratory activities, she has directed successful competition entries. A team building the working cranes won a K’Nex Challenge regional title. Park Forest also took third place in the 3-2-1 Competition national online knowledge tournament.
But in Jonathan Klingeman’s opinion, all of Brown’s work earns top marks.
“Lori is one of the most creative and innovative teachers I’ve had the pleasure to work with,” says Klingeman, the district director of gifted, learning enrichment and title services. “Though her background is in mathematics, she empowers her students in all subject matters to dig deep, take risks, and reach beyond the expected. There is no ‘old way of thinking’ in Lori’s methods.”
A hunger for something new brought Brown to the district. Teaching in Altoona, she first experienced customized learning as a facilitator for cross-curricular independent study courses.
“I got a taste for it, and I was thinking I want to do something more creative with my career,” she says. “Math, it’s pretty black and white. You can only go so far with creativity.”
This year, her bag of tricks has included Mystery STEM Challenges. One involved making newspaper shoes; another produced pompom launchers. A third required shovelling “snow,” a pan of rice, with two index cards.
Brown and social studies teachers also have collaborated on novel alternative research projects, such as a virtual magazine about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and an animated film about 19th-century American political parties.
For her part, Brown has made connections.
With more time now to get to know students, she relishes seeing them delve into projects and shine. Her daily exchanges keep inspiring her — so much that she’s studying for a gifted education certification, the better to empower sharp adolescents.
“We need students to grow up to be adults who can think on their own, problem solve on their own,” she says. “In my role as a math teacher, much of it was teacher-directed and getting information to students. I’m now in a position where I’m listening to students and they’re giving me information, and I’m loving it.”
Photos by Nabil K. Mark