Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards
Angel Janelle Lim
Newberry Math & Science Academy
(Chicago Public Schools)
Chicago
“I struggled in school,” admits Angel Janelle Lim. “As an adult, I want to be there for those students who don’t learn as well as everyone else. I want to teach to every child’s individual needs.”
With the help of her mother, who Lim calls her greatest influence both personally and professionally, Lim overcame her difficulties and excelled. Now she helps her third grade students of all abilities at the Newberry Math & Science Academy in Chicago do the same.
Be it the “perfect homework breakfast” Lim serves quarterly to students who conscientiously turn in all of their homework or the 21 different ways Lim has taught her class to clap, to praise other students and to encourage them to support each other, Lim’s creative approaches keep her third graders excited and attentive. She also has a strong focus on the emotional dimensions of learning. A recent visitor to Lim’s classroom observed the following:
“One of her more advanced students was working in a mixed ability group of four. A special needs student was struggling. His fellow student leaned over, put an arm around his shoulder and whispered, ‘You can do this!’”
Literacy is a major theme in Lim’s classroom as well. She has her students analyze literature and create their own “pop-up” books out of inexpensive paper plates. In doing this, she emphasizes the various themes in the books they read.
Parents also find Lim to be extraordinary. Julie Froman, whose son is in Lim’s class, says Lim gets the children to “buy-in” to what she’s trying to do. “Our son would go anywhere with her and do anything that she suggests because he believes that she genuinely knows and cares about him,” Froman exclaims.
Lim’s enthusiasm for her job is contagious. Newberry Principal Renaud Beaudoin and Assistant Principal Linda Foley-Acevedo say that upon entering her classroom “you cannot help but become part of the magic!”
Lim is happy to have a chance to share her enthusiasm. And she feels she gets something back as well. “Everyday I’m learning,” she says. “All of us are learning.”