Randy Heite
Kingsley Elementary
Evanston, IL

"After graduating from a vocational HS, I decided to see the world and put my skills learned in school to use. While volunteering in New Guinea, living among the various tribes, I really found my calling. After long days of construction work, I would spend nearly all of my free time hanging out with the children in the tribe. I learned from them and they in turn learned from me. Some of our exchanges included them teaching me how to prepare bat over an open fire and my teaching them how to make sandals. Upon my return home, I knew I wanted to pursue a teaching degree. My role as a teacher is to ignite students' curiosity and to continually challenge them to look further and find their own answers."

When visitors tour the building, they stop dead in their tracks outside Randy's doorway. Adults seem almost transformed into kindergarten students on the spot, stopping to touch, explore, and admire the myriad offerings."

Randy's kindergarten classroom is the epitome of organized chaos that masks a deliberate game plan centered on his enthusiasm for teaching students. Some items that can be found in his classroom include twin 60- gallon aquariums, an iguana, fish, turtles, quails, trees, woodshop, potting table, grow-lab, play kitchen, and old-fashioned milkshake maker. These offerings create an environment that allows his students to explore and play with materials that challenge and interest them. Randy believes that learning should empower students; that it should help to develop a belief in one's self, and that even young children can have ownership in their environment and education.

Other Highlights:

• National Board Certification
• Created Kindergarten Diners where students plan menus, cook, wait on costumers, bus tables, and manage a cash register. What started as a project after reading a story has turned into an entire team project with all kindergarten classes at the school and the community.
• Board member, Evanston Day Nursery
• Board member, McGaw YMCA Early Childhood Center.
• Chairperson for our "Character Counts" program at the school
• PTA co-chair for our school's prairie garden
• Named by Northern Cook County Soil and Water Conservation as the Environmental Educator of the Year
• Evanston Parks and Recreation Teacher of weekly classes in sign language to adults and children
• Personal interests: Home remodeling, reading, friends, listening to music, traveling the great outdoors (camping), exercising, film festivals, and oil painting