Her Story
Lisa Crooks grew up in the Kansas City area, and her path to teaching began in junior high, when she volunteered at the Kansas State School for the Deaf and became fluent in sign language. She earned a B.A. in elementary education from Kansas State University in 1980 and a master’s degree in education of the hearing impaired from the University of Kansas in 1981. She then taught at the School for the Deaf for seven years before joining the Olathe schools in 1988, where she has taught fourth grade at Black Bob Elementary.
Her honors include the Kansas Medical Society Award for Excellence in Teaching (1993), the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching (1994), National Board Certification (1999), and a Christa McAuliffe Fellowship in 2001, awarded to only one Kansas teacher. She has been nominated for Kansas Teacher of the Year and is president-elect of the Society of Elementary Presidential Awardees. She has also taught as an adjunct at Ottawa University (math methods) and worked on a National Science Foundation math grant with the University of Kansas.
She is the author of the books Munchable Math and Color Me Learning, with a third in progress, and a frequent presenter at national conferences of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Teachers Association. Her nominator, Dr. Alison Banikowski, calls her “truly a ‘teacher of teachers.'”
Beyond the Classroom
Crooks’s classroom service projects run through the Good Bears of the World “Cub Den.” Her students recycle, sell gourmet lollipops and raise money to buy teddy bears for children in need. In the fall of 2001 they delivered 560 bears, along with meals through Meals on Wheels, and they have also run a “Caring Across the Miles” penny drive.
She serves on the board of The Paul Mesner Puppets and the Midwest Ear Institute, and on a national NSTA/NCTM task force. At school she runs family math nights, a “Where the Sidewalk Ends, Math Begins” program and a Sign Language Club. Away from school she is an avid cyclist who rides the “Hotter than Hell Hundred,” a climber of Colorado fourteeners, and the mother of two daughters.
Philosophy Into Practice
Crooks describes teaching as something you do, not something you are. She emphasizes doing and understanding over memorizing, and she opens each year with a promise to parents about what their children will bring home, a promise she has been known to amend with a smile.
“I view teaching as an action, rather than a noun.”— from her essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
“I promise each day your children will learn something. Some days they’ll bring it home in their hands… in their heads… in their hearts… and some days they’ll bring it home in their stomachs.”— from her essay, “In the Classroom”
In Her Own Words
““Doing” and “understanding,” as opposed to memorizing, are important pieces.”— from her essays
“To not only answer questions, but to question answers.”— from her essays
“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence, plus character, is the goal of true education.”— from her essay, “Outside the Classroom,” quoting Martin Luther King Jr.
“Put one foot in front of the other. Remember Mt. Massive… Never give up!”— from her essay, “Getting to Know You”
What Others Said
“Lisa is truly a ‘teacher of teachers’!”— Dr. Alison Banikowski, Assistant Superintendent, Olathe District Schools
“Of the many teachers I have known over the past 37 years, Lisa Crooks ranks at the very top.”— Ron Wimmer, Ed.D., Superintendent, Olathe District Schools
“Lisa is the type of teacher that students dream about, parents pray for, and that fellow staff members aspire to be like.”— David Kearney