Travis Elementary School science lab teacher Sarah Hawkins has an infectious sense of fun, wonder and curiosity that translates to her students.
Recently, she was named the Region 18 Teacher of the Year and was also the Ector County ISD Elementary Teacher of the Year.
Hawkins has been teaching for eight years, three with ECISD at Travis Elementary.
She is now a finalist for the State Teacher of the Year award, a contest coordinated each year by the Texas Association of School Administrators.
A ceremony for the region honor will be held at 9:45 a.m. Oct. 20 at the Region 18 Education Service Center.
Hawkins and her husband, Scott, are both retired from the U.S. Navy. They have five daughters and three grandchildren.
“I am so very proud of Ms. Hawkins,” Travis Principal Amy Russell said. “She was so honored and humbled to receive not only the Travis teacher of the year, but then ECISD’s teacher of the Year. When she found out that she needed to fill out paperwork and essays to be considered the Region 18 Teacher of the Year, she told me, ‘I can’t do that. I’m not worthy at all to be in the running.’ I sternly replied to her, ‘Come on Soldier (in reference to her military background), you have to step up and do this for teachers! You are not only telling your story, but you are telling the story of thousands of teachers and their incredibly difficult journey they have had to endure this last epidemic year! You are their face and you are their voice. You’re telling Travis’ story, the district’s story, and the world’s story!’ Well, in like fashion, she stepped up and completed the process of telling their story through her eyes, and was named Region 18 Teacher of the Year! I’m one proud principal!”
Hawkins has been teaching for nine years, including a stint with an American school in Italy.
When she and her family moved back to the States, she substitute taught in Virginia then went to Montana.
“I worked at the boys and girls home for troubled youth. I helped them with their schoolwork there …,” Hawkins said.
When she got to Saginaw, she worked as a pharmacy technician because there were no openings.
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, her family lived there for seven years, which is the longest she has ever lived anywhere. Her parents are from Montana.
Her father drew her into the military, but Hawkins knew she wanted to be a teacher from the time she was in third grade.
“… When my older sister would babysit, the kids would generally gravitate towards me and we’d play games and we’d do all that fun stuff and I really enjoyed it. It was fun creating new things for them to do just to keep them busy,” Hawkins said.
For example, she’d take the children into the backyard and have them make a map of it.
“… I found everywhere that I’ve been I was somehow able to help somebody in learning something that they didn’t know and so I really, really enjoyed that,” she added.
One advantage Hawkins has is that she tries her ideas out on her daughters and grandchildren. They call Hawkins “extreme” because she does things like wear the planets around her head in the correct order when she was teaching a unit on that subject.
When they did a lesson on weathering, erosion and deposition they sang and danced.
“We got some stuff off the internet and we were doing all sorts of stuff to go with it. I really think science labs are extremely important in elementary school. Yes, in middle and high school, but we have that fifth grade test. Sometimes they don’t get what they need in third and fourth grade before that test,” Hawkins said.
If she can give them hands-on experience to help them remember, that gives her students a leg up.
As a child, Hawkins said she was a visual learner and would take things apart and put them back together.
The lesson for a recent Wednesday was tools. She gave them all the tools and asked students to identify them.
Hawkins said she lets the students experiment and play, especially the English as second language students because they don’t know what it’s called in English.
“… And if they can’t grasp that now, by the time they go to take the test, it’s just not going to happen,” Hawkins said.
She found out about the Region 18 award when she was waiting for her youngest daughter to get out of surgery.
“So I got online, and I’m watching the school and they popped up my name. And I was like, ‘Oh.’ I was so embarrassed, but I just do my thing.”
At the same time, learning of the award helped her relax a little.
“… It made me feel better about her surgery. I just don’t know how. I don’t know why. But it did,” Hawkins said.
Her daughter, who works as a coach’s aide at Travis, was with her and recorded Hawkins’ reaction.
She added that she has enjoyed working for ECISD.
“And I’ve really loved Travis,” Hawkins said.
She added that she’s one of the last elementary science lab teachers.
“I’m super happy that they still have this position here because I pull out everything … There’s a bug on the floor, and I got about 10 kids help me pick it up so we can take it outside,” she said.
“We look at it; we study a little bit; and then we take it outside when before it’d be the whole bunch of just screaming.”
Students bring her bugs and she brings animals from home where they have a variety of pets.
They have a house chicken named House Chicken, snakes and other creatures that the children would just see on TV.
“And so it’s not real to them until it’s real,” Hawkins said.
