VENTURA : 2 Teachers Nominated for National Honor

Last school year, Sherry Tatsch had her kindergarten to second-grade class at Lincoln School in Ventura comb the beaches for trash and then chart what they found on a graph.

Christine Mikles had her ninth- through 12th-grade math students at Ventura High School take blood samples, experiment with them, log data and present a report on the findings.

It was this kind of hands-on, real-life curricula that has placed both teachers among the finalists for the national 1993 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching, presented by the National Science Foundation.

Tatsch is one of three California nominees in the elementary school math category and Mikles one of three in the secondary math category. There will be one winner per state in each category. Nominees are chosen from among hundreds of applicants for their teaching ability and dedication to their profession.

National winners have already been selected from among the finalists, but the results won’t be released until August or September, organizers said.

The two Ventura teachers agreed that it was their innovative approach to teaching that earned them their honors.

“We don’t just teach them the traditional way, with a chalkboard and homework problems. We don’t tell them the answers. We don’t tell them necessarily what’s going on. We get them excited,” Mikles said.

“Instead of memorizing things by rote drills,” Tatsch said, “we now discover, think and relate things to real life.”

Panels of mathematicians, scientists and math/science teachers chose the nominees.

“They were chosen for their effectiveness in the classroom and their professionalism and confidence in the field,” said Kathleen Holmay, spokeswoman for the National Science Teachers Assn. “These teachers have reached a higher level of professionalism.”