TEACHER'S CORNER: FIFTH-GRADERS HOPE TO GET `CAUGHT'

Fifth-graders hope to get caught in Diane Mueller's Washington classroom -- caught doing something good.

"One of the biggest responsibilities facing teachers is to help children feel good about themselves," said Mueller. "Children who are successful at school have a positive self-image. They also know school is important."

To encourage students to feel good about themselves, Mueller holds class meetings weekly.

"We start every meeting by complimenting each other," she said. "The children like to get `caught' doing something thoughtful or kind to one another, and then being publicly acknowledged by his classmates."

Class meetings also give children an opportunity to take part in decision making. They plan events like class parties and field trips.

"I chose teaching as a career because I enjoy watching children grow and develop, and knowing that I had a small part in it," Mueller said. "Children nowadays are under so many pressures -- more than their parents and grandparents were at their age. Many of them come from single-parent homes and more and more are becoming `latch key' kids before and after school at younger ages."

"It worries me to think of the drugs available to them on the street and dangers such as AIDS that they must grow up with," she said.

So Mueller looks for ways to involve children in learning so it's fun and challenging.

"It may be a game of spelling basketball or baseball to practice new words or conducting a competition, game-show style, before a social studies or science test as a review," she said. "They love competition."

Mueller has taught 16 years, seven of which have been in the upper-elementary classroom.

She also has experience as a secondary learning-disabilities teacher at Central High and Junior High schools. She also taught elementary special education.

She earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a master's degree in special education from Southeast Missouri State University.

Mueller and her husband, Steve, have two children. Jeff is a freshman at Notre Dame High School and Caroline is a sixth-grader at St. Vincent de Paul Grade School.

She enjoys playing tennis and bridge, going boating, watching her children play baseball, softball and basketball and singing in the church choir.