TEACHER FEATURE: TEACHER WANTS STUDENTS TO SEE THE WONDER OF LIFE

McCLURE, Ill. -- Lisa Mosby wants her students to enjoy school and achieve good grades. More important, she wants them to realize that what they learn in school will be tools they use for the rest of their lives.

Mosby, a third-grade teacher at Shawnee South Elementary School, encourages her students to see the wonder in the world around them.

"It's easy, inexpensive and never-failing," said Mosby, who is in her eighth year of teaching. "If their view is limited, so is learning. If the view is expansive, it inspires, it inspires, motivates and fuels further learning."

Students are unique in their thinking, which means that teachers must also find unique ways to share information. Mosby said she can now laugh at an experience in which a student showed her she wasn't thinking uniquely.

"After presenting what I presumed was a very successful learning experience, I was shattered when a little boy raised his hand and asked, Can we have some fun now?'" she said. "That was a wake-up call. Since then, I've tried to step out of the textbooks more and present lessons from a broader spectrum."

That broader spectrum includes life outside of the classroom. Mosby said she tries to talk about the weather, crops grown in area fields and other issues that relate to the world outside the classroom. Large windows overlooking a grassy playground are a "great reminder" that many issues affect a child's life, she said.

"There's a world out there, and children want to be in awe of it," Mosby said. "Let's let them."

Mosby and her husband, Gregory, live in McClure, Ill. They are the parents of Justin, 23, and Tara, 19.

When she's not working, Mosby enjoys reading, yoga and laughing.