Disabled Teacher Tries to Bring Out the Best : Simi Valley: Susan Jones will be honored for classroom excellence. Her mission, she says, is to find and tap something special in each child.

As a 21-year-old college graduate with an English degree and no teacher training, Susan Jones of Simi Valley got all jittery in the moments before she faced her first classroom of elementary students.

But the feeling didn’t last.

“By the end of the day, those 50 kids were mine,” recalled Jones, now a veteran of more than 20 years. “I think there was a God-given gift there that I knew what to do. It was a dream come true, being in that classroom. I’ll never forget when that bell rang.”

A second-grade teacher at St. Rose of Lima School in Simi Valley for 13 years, Jones on Monday will be recognized with a national award for excellence in teaching by the National Catholic Educational Assn.

Her students think they know what makes Jones unique. Descriptions by her second- graders range from “She makes us laugh,” to “She’s serious” and “She’s in a wheelchair.”

Perhaps the greatest compliment: “We’ve learned almost every single thing in second grade,” said 8-year-old Nicholas Lyon.

About 10 years ago, a degenerative nerve condition forced Jones, 48, to shift from crutches to a wheelchair. The change may have improved her relationship with students by bringing her down to near eye level with the average second-grader, Jones said.

“I’m not looking down on them,” she said.

Jones makes light of her disability. “Some of the older kids come through here and say, ‘She’s the only teacher we can push around,’ ” Jones said.

But she recognizes the impact she has on youngsters. “If they draw me, they draw the chair, but I think they also realize that wheelchairs and braces have a real person inside of them.”

Her condition is painful, but “it’s not painful between 8 and 3,” Jones said. “Who can tune into that when you can tune into 41 kids? I’m too busy to get the pain signals.”

Jones has a special rapport with children, St. Rose Principal Patty Pryor said.

“You can go to school and learn everything about teaching, but if you don’t have the gift of reaching children, it’s hard to be successful at it,” Pryor said. “Susan has it. She knows how to get in kids’ minds. She’s full of love.”

Jones’ philosophy is based on the belief that each child has something special to offer. Her job is to find it and tap it.

“I try to catch them doing the right thing and build on that,” Jones said.

It isn’t always easy with 40 or more children in the class, but Jones tries to supply as much individualized attention as possible, she said.

“I try not to let them go home without having their name called for doing something positive, something to let them know I know they’re here and they’re important,” Jones said.

Despite the large class size, Jones is successful at making each child feel special and excited about learning, said Fran Foulkrod, who has had three children in Jones’ class and who, along with Pryor, recommended her for the award.

“No problem is too small to give her individual attention,” Foulkrod said. “She just is so exuberant about teaching that it rubs off on all her students.”

Jones is among the 12 recipients of the 1994 Distinguished Teachers Award from the Catholic educators’ organization, capturing the honor for the region that includes California, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah and the Pacific Territories. She will receive the award Monday at a ceremony in Anaheim.

Jones has mixed feelings about the award because she did not aspire to win.

“I can’t really feel I should be a model for somebody else,” she said. “I am who I need to be and I know I do a good job with the talent I have.”

One of her talents is the ability to see what is happening in the most remote corner of the classroom without even appearing to look. Her commanding voice fills the classroom, so when Jones says, “Billy, eyes up here,” Billy snaps to attention.

As second-grader Ben Abajian put it: “She watches people good. She keeps an eye on them.”

Jones agrees that establishing discipline is one of her strengths. Her former students do not forget it, she said.

“I can go out in the schoolyard and look at kids sitting on the tables, and I don’t have to say anything. They get off the tables,” Jones said. “They know I mean business.”

If discipline is one cornerstone of her teaching method, love is another, Jones said. Even when she is disappointed in students’ behavior, they know she isn’t disappointed in them, Jones said.

“There are probably some days they go home and do a lot of complaining about me, but that’s OK. I go home sometimes and complain a lot about them,” she said. “I always let them start over the next day.”

The students probably give Jones as much in return as she gives them, she said.

“I give to them the sense that they can, and when they’re successful, they give me back the sense that I can.”