California Picks Elite 8 : Irvine Woman Top Teacher Candidate

Barbara DuBow, who teaches social studies to limited-English-speaking students in seventh and eighth grade at Ball Junior High School in Anaheim, has been named one of eight semifinalists for California’s Teacher of the Year, it was announced Wednesday.

DeBow, 40, of Irvine will now compete for the state’s top teacher award, which would put her in competition for the National Teacher of the Year.

A teacher for 14 years, DuBow has been at Ball Junior for seven years. This year, her class includes students from 12 countries speaking nine languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Romanian.

“I think (teaching’s) fascinating,” DuBow said Wednesday night. “I love it because I get to learn.”

During her first year of teaching at Ball, one of her students was a Vietnamese girl whose family endured incredible hardships in getting to America.

“That first year, she was very, very quiet. She was absolutely terrified of everything,” DuBow said.

Now the girl is an honor student in college. “It just blows me away.”

DuBow said that while it is “definitely challenging” to have so many students who come to her class with little or no knowledge of English, she finds inspiration in the freshness of their appreciation of American culture.

“We were doing the Bill of Rights, and they were just absolutely flabbergasted at some of the rights people have in this country, that people here take for granted,” DuBow said.

DuBow said that in her teaching she tries to do “a lot of positive-reward things.” For example, when her students do something well, or avoid trouble, she gives them tickets that they put in a jar for a chance at winning prizes--books, pencils, stickers or candy--at the end of the week.

“I just try to be real positive all the time and encourage them to stay in school, do their homework and get involved in school,” DuBow said. “I feel high expectations are real important. I think we don’t expect enough of our students and our kids.”

DuBow, who is a mother of two boys, said she most admires Martin Luther King Jr. for his dedication to a cause. Her favorite quotation goes something like this: Failure is not setting your goals high and not reaching them. It is is setting your goals to low and reaching them.

“That decribes how I feel about my students,” she said. “I have high expectations of them. I do positive things with them in the classroom that encourage them to go for it.”