Award 'bittersweet' for Amanda Elementary teacher
Friday, May 09, 2008
MIDDLETOWN — Pamela Sue Wheeler didn't know whether to raise her hands in celebration or bury them in her tear-stained face.
So she did both.
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Cody Back, a fifth-grader at Amanda Elementary School in Middletown, receives assistance on a science project from teacher Pamela Wheeler on Thursday, May 8. Wheeler recently won the district's Virginia W. Shaffer Award.
Columnist Rick McCrabb
Get latest headlines via RSS feeds"It was bittersweet," she said.
Wheeler, who has taught students with disabilities for 29 years in the Middletown City Schools District — all at Amanda Elementary — recently received the Virginia W. Shaffer Memorial Award at the Middletown Teachers' Association banquet.
When Jessica Perry, who team-teaches with Wheeler, read her nomination letter during the 23rd annual awards ceremony, Wheeler said she was "very surprised to say the least."
That's when Wheeler, a Miami University graduate, steered her mind to her late mother. It was her mother, Dorothy Wheeler, who taught her lessons that extend outside the classroom.
"She was my teacher about life," Wheeler said Thursday, May 8, while sitting at her desk during her planning period. "She taught me about family, she taught me about friends, she taught me ..." Wheeler's voice trailed off. Tears filled her eyes.
"My life teacher," she said.
On March 3, five weeks before the awards banquet, Dorothy Wheeler, 78, died after battling numerous illnesses — diabetes, kidney failure, blindness — for years.
"Man, I wish she had been there that night instead of looking down on me," Wheeler said.
She was handed another tissue, then added: "Right now my emotions are close to the surface."
From 1979, her first year in the district, until 1998, the year her father, Maurice, died, Wheeler said her parents drove from Urbana to Middletown to attend the Christmas party in her daughter's class.
"They liked being here," she said.
Wheeler, 50, has been offered teaching positions in other, more affluent, more attractive, schools in the district. She has remained married to Amanda. She's attracted by the toughness of the students, the way they're able to overcome their financial, emotional and sometimes abusive backgrounds.
These students have no silver spoons at home.
"This is where my passion is," she said of the Oxford-State elementary school. "I love the community, the children, their needs."
When asked whether teachers are born, Wheeler said: "Top teachers are."
Perry added: "She's definitely one of them."
Perry, in her fifth year, said Wheeler exemplifies every trait a talented teacher should possess.
"She has compassion for students," Perry said. "She stands up for what's right. She stands up for her values, her morals. She really cares about the kids."
Contact this columnist at (513) 705-2842 or rmccrabb@coxohio.com.
