HISTORY MEETS HALLOWEEN

History met Halloween in Tammy Brotherton's seventh grade social studies class at L.J. Schultz Middle School.

"For Halloween this year some students made masks of "A face from History." The masks included Cleopatra, Einstein, George Washington and Christopher Columbus.

Projects like these are among Brotherton's teaching techniques. "I use a variety of things to teach my lessons," she said, "including a Jeopardy and Split Second knowledge games, lecture, discussion, independent practice, plays and debates."

She also utilizes a classroom lottery. "Students are asked questions from the previous day's lesson. If they get questions correct, their names are placed in the lottery," Brotherton explained. "On test days, I pull out five names for a free question on the test."

Brotherton has been teaching five years, two at Schultz and three at the high school level.

"The students are the ones that make the projects interesting, the classwork fun and the atmosphere pleasant," Brotherton said. "My best classes are the best because of the students who give their best. The students are the reason I went into teaching. In enjoy working with young adults."

But kids will be kids, she said.

"I'll never forget my first year of teaching," she said. "Some students pitched in and bought me a Mickey Mouse alarm clock. One day, one of my students came to class early from lunch and hid my clock. I didn't notice the missing clock until half way through the period when the alarm went off. The noise appeared to be coming from my overhead transparency projector, which was in use at the time. But it was nowhere to be seen.

"I finally loosened a screw and, sure enough, there it was inside the projector. I even had to laugh at that one. Needless to say, the students taught me as much as I taught them that first year."

She is married to G. Dean Brotherton II and has two sons, Trae, 7, and Kirk, 4.

She enjoys reading, walking and outdoor activities.