His Story
Michael B. Kaiser earned his B.S. from Indiana University Southeast in Jeffersonville in 1971 and his M.S. there in 1977, adding graduate coursework at Purdue-Jeffersonville and the University of Southern Indiana in 1989. He began his career in 1971 as a reading teacher in New Albany-Floyd County schools, moved into substitute teaching, and by 1972 had become a full-time elementary teacher in the district — a position he held for the next twenty-three years, the last nine of them teaching sixth grade and coordinating the gifted and talented program at Pine View Elementary School. Since 1986 he had also served as Gifted/Talented Coordinator for Indiana University Southeast.
His honors accumulated at every level. Locally: the Pine View Outstanding Achievement Award, New Albany’s highest civic honor, the Honorary River Pilot Award, New Albany-Floyd County Teacher of the Year, the WHAS-TV Excellence in Classroom Leadership Education Award, and the Citizens Fidelity Pride in Performance for Excellence in Education Award. At the state level: the Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship, Indiana Teacher of the Year, Kentucky’s highest award (the Kentucky Colonel), and Indiana’s highest civilian honor, the Sagamore of the Wabash. Nationally: Honorable Mention and a “Top Twenty K-8 Teachers in America” citation from Learning magazine, the 1990 Professional Best Leadership Award from Michigan State University and Oldsmobile, the 1992 Burger King Honors Excellence in Education Award, a 1993 Walt Disney Company American Teacher Award as one of the top five elementary teachers in the nation, the 1994 Christa McAuliffe Fellowship, and a 1994 National Teacher Hall of Fame finalist honor before his induction the following year.
Kaiser was also one of ten American educators serving on the Board of Directors for the Association of International Space Educators, working to build a worldwide link of classrooms via computers and modems, and served on the national scholarship selection committee for U.S. Space Camp and Space Academy and on Indiana’s Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Selection Committee.
Beyond the Classroom
In 1986, Kaiser worked with a parent to create Project AHEAD, an enrichment program for students in grades three through six that grew to serve a seven-county area of southern Indiana, offering twelve to nineteen classes across three sessions a year to 150-250 students at a time, in subjects from foreign languages and lab sciences to computer music composition, puppetry, oceanography, and cartooning. He served as a classroom supervisor for student teachers from local universities, as a mentor teacher for novice colleagues in his own building, on corporation curriculum and textbook-adoption committees, and on the Teacher Education Advisory Council for Indiana University Southeast.
He coached boys’ and girls’ teams in basketball, track, wrestling, and volleyball, created and directed a student-run video television broadcast company, and worked with Tiger Scouts and church youth and drama groups while his own sons were of age. He invited grandparents and senior citizens into his classroom so his students could teach them multimedia research skills, and his students produced video documentaries preserving the life stories of senior citizens in the community. He continued to spend enormous amounts of personal time visiting the families of current and former students in times of need — at their homes, in hospitals, and at funeral homes.
Philosophy Into Action
Kaiser’s philosophy rested on two premises. The first, which colleagues urged him not to share for fear it would hurt his chances at recognition: he made it his policy from his very first year of teaching to give every student and family his home phone number with no strings attached, telling each student on the first day, “I care about you as a person and I will do everything in my power to help you be a success now or ten years from now. YOU ARE MY STUDENTS FOR LIFE, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.” He backed that promise with thousands of hours spent at funeral homes, hospitals, students’ homes, and even jails, answering calls at any hour, any day of the year. The second premise: every student is gifted in some way, and it is worth a teacher’s time and effort to help every student find that gift.
That philosophy was tested six weeks before he wrote his nomination essay, when a former track athlete and star student, J.R. Hayes, was struck by a truck on a bike ride and died after Kaiser knelt beside him in the road, unable to help but present until the end. Kaiser wrote that the tragedy reinforced everything he had believed for over twenty years about a teacher’s power to change lives — power, he said, that comes not from control but from love laid down freely for others.
“A teacher who only teaches the mind and neglects touching the heart has missed changing a life forever!”— from his essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
“I see every student as a genius waiting to be discovered. Every child has a gift hidden somewhere within and it is my task to discover that talent and help the child to hone it to perfection.”— from his essay, “In the Classroom”
In His Own Words
“I visualize my room as a learning and life epicenter where lives are positively changed on a daily basis… What happens in my classroom acts as a contagion that infects every part of a student’s life.”— from his essay, “In the Classroom”
“I don’t die for my students, but I have constantly laid my life down for them. That means that when they need me, no matter time of day or night, now or twenty years down the road, I have been willing to lay down what I was doing at the time and to help them get their need met.”— from his essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
“I couldn’t do a thing to help him, but he knew that I was there for him, and that made all the difference in the world. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE FOR KIDS, NO MATTER WHAT.”— from his essay, “Philosophy of Teaching,” recalling the loss of a former student
What Others Said
“Have you asked yourselves what really makes a teacher be remembered in your mind long after you have left that teacher’s class? It often times boils down to the wonderful person who instilled in you the power to believe in yourself. Mike Kaiser is just this type of teacher!”— Beth Peterson, First Grade Teacher, Mt. Tabor School
“I consider Mike to be a teacher of unlimited potential… He is a superb role model for students, and once in his classroom they become his adopted family for life. Parents of his students know that they can call on him twenty-four hours a day, and he will be there for them in times of trouble or crisis, even years after their child has left Mike’s class.”— Marv Marino, Principal, Pine View School and Nominator
“As a child, I didn’t know the word ‘innovative,’ but I knew I was in a special classroom… It is now almost twenty years later and I too am a teacher. I know my year with Mr. Kaiser has a lot to do with this.”— Susie Keeler Gahan, Former Student, Fairmont Elementary School
“As an administrator, I wish we could get more excellent teachers to go to the tough schools. Those are the schools where the real work is, as Mike would tell you, that is where the real need to teach exists.”— Ralph Dooley, Principal, Green Valley Elementary School
“Mike Kaiser is the most effective teacher I have ever known… I think Mike is most deserving of this award. He is definitely one of our elite teachers. Mike has always glowed with that ‘spark’ that great teachers possess and this igniting enthusiasm spreads to other staff as well as to students.”— Louis A. (Tony) Duffy, Colleague
“Many of his students do not have regular contact with a male parent. Mike provides firm guidelines. He demands the best that each individual can give, and the students respect him for it… It is my personal opinion that he certainly exemplifies the characteristics required for ‘Hall of Fame’ status.”— Sara McDaniel Dickman, Green Valley Elementary School
“In his very quiet and unassuming way, Mike has brought a love of learning and feeling of achievement to hundreds of students in the New Albany area and to numerous student teachers whom he has mentored… A ‘catalyst for excellence,’ Mike Kaiser motivates, prods and draws students into the wonderful and important world of learning.”— Claudia Crump, Professor Emeritus, Indiana University Southeast