Her Story
Cindy Couchman teaches geometry, College Algebra and AP Calculus at Buhler High School in Buhler, Kansas, where she also leads the math department. Her room is arranged with three tables of two so students can work in pairs, threes or sixes, and she mixes the groups every quarter. A former assistant superintendent says “Whenever I dropped by her classroom, it was always full of students. They may have been working on math, but many times they were just there to be with Mrs. Couchman.”
Each year she picks a theme from a book, and one year it was How Full Is Your Bucket? Her students became “Mrs. Couchman’s Bucket Fillers,” writing anonymous notes of encouragement to classmates and staff, and one student started a Positivity Club. In math, students build a miniature golf hole in geometry, foam-board models of cross-section volumes in calculus, and designs made only of conic sections in College Algebra. She celebrates mistakes: “It is through wrong approaches that we learn!”
She posts taped lessons online so absent students can keep up, and she has tried a flipped classroom. She says she has had a 100 percent passing rate in all her classes for four years, and before she began teaching calculus the semester exam averages were 69 and 61 percent; they have since reached 80 and 81. About 92 percent of Buhler seniors take math although only three credits are required. Eight of her former students are now math teachers.
Beyond the Classroom
Couchman was named Kansas Teacher of the Year, and she has presented to 18 Kansas colleges of education and at more than 100 universities, conferences and service centers. She is a past president of the Kansas Teacher of the Year Organization. Her other honors include National Board Certification (2006), a National Finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, a Lowell Milken Center Fellowship and a Kansas State University College of Education Alumni Fellow award.
She trains applicants for the Presidential Award and reviews National Board applications. She worked with a doctoral engineering student on a National Science Foundation grant, and together they taught Buhler students computer programming and used an Xbox Kinect and a stomp rocket to teach functions. Her calculus students tutor younger children across the district.
Philosophy Into Practice
Couchman’s motto is “Be nice, for everyone you meet has a battle going on.” She says she teaches mathematics, but “I teach them to believe in themselves, to work hard, and to be nice.” She credits her own high school geometry teacher, who believed in her, with showing her that “teaching is more than a job.”
She names two issues for education: teachers’ need to advocate for their profession, and evaluation systems that cannot be reduced to a test score. She would like “an Individualized Evaluation Plan for every teacher” and wants teachers “at the table when these decisions are made.”
“A small action can have ripple effects that last a lifetime.”— Cynthia J. Couchman
In Her Own Words
“Each student is a valued individual to me and brings something unique to the classroom.”— Cynthia J. Couchman
“Making a mistake is just an opportunity for learning!”— Cynthia J. Couchman
“We must also act like the professionals we expect to be treated as!”— Cynthia J. Couchman
What Others Said
“Cindy is a rare combination of passion, compassion, charisma, and humility.”— Stefani Dreiling, nominator and assistant principal
“She is one of the top educators I have had the opportunity to work with in my thirty-two years in education.”— Michael R. Berblinger, Superintendent, Buhler USD 313
“Cindy exemplifies the 3 R’s – Relationships, Rigor and Relevance.”— Former assistant superintendent, Buhler USD 313
“Cindy made me fall in love with the content, and she is the sole reason I majored in mathematics at the University of Kansas.”— Madison Shipley, former student
“She is without doubt a tremendous inspiration to all of us at Buhler High School.”— Kyle Sides, math teacher and colleague