MOUNT VERNON — This morning, Knox County welcomed educators new to the area by treating them to a breakfast. Held at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, the annual New Educator’s Breakfast is sponsored by the Mount Vernon-Knox County Chamber of Commerce, Kokosing Construction Co. Inc. and Time Warner Cable.
“I think this breakfast is one of the nicest events that Time Warner sponsors,” said Jean Arthur, manager of community relations, Time Warner Cable, “because one of our focus areas is education and it’s nice to have so many new educators together to talk to at one time.”
Carol Grubaugh, program manager for the Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber “feels that Knox County has some of the best schools anywhere.”
“And that’s from preschool to higher education,” she said. “We think it’s really important to honor and welcome [educators] to our community and give them maps and things that they may need. We really want them to feel welcome.”
Utica’s Krishana Weber, who will be an intervention specialist at Danville Elementary School, said she appreciated the welcoming gesture.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to meet a lot of other people from other schools,” she said, “and to get to know the resources that are available in the community.”
Some of those resources were described by Arthur, who addressed the group. Time Warner promotes technology in the classroom, and Arthur spoke a little about Cable in the Classroom, a nonprofit organization supported by Time Warner, one of its founders. She said Cable in the Classroom has a broadband tool on its Web site that’s called “elections.”
“It’s a great teaching tool as well as a game,” Arthur said.
Time Warner also provides grants to teachers for classroom technology, and sponsors a high school public service announcement contest. The upcoming contest is about healthy eating and feeding the hungry. Time Warner, Arthur said, will donate $1 to the Children’s Hunger Alliance for every vote cast on the Web site.
One of the most popular resources available to teachers, Arthur said, is the Cable in the Classroom magazine. The most current issue has articles dealing with Internet safety and the responsible use of interactive media.
Chad Kuhn, who will be teaching fifth grade at Centerburg, is from out-of-state, and thought the breakfast and fellowship were excellent. He appreciated the chance to meet some of the people he is going to be working with this year, and liked the encouraging words of keynote speaker State Rep. Thom Collier’s speech.
Collier challenged the educators to find creative ways to solve problems and to use humor to alleviate stress. He said “humor helps you get out of a rut, because with it you can go both backward and forward in your mind.”
Collier also encouraged the teachers to remember the following formula: E+R=O. That means, said Collier, events plus our response equals the outcome.
“We may not be able to control events,” Collier said, “but we need to teach children that we control 100 percent of our responses to those events.”
In closing, Collier told the educators that when challenges arise in the classroom, they should not wish that things were different, but should pray for the guidance, strength and skills to meet these challenges.
