A Close-Up Look At People Who Matter : An Honored Teacher Leads by Example

“There are athletes and entertainers who make more in a day than our teachers do in a year,” points out David Flores, director of alternative education in the Los Angeles County Office of Education. “It’s a sad commentary that we value our best athletes more than our best teachers.”

Saugus resident Sylvia Kerschner may be living proof of why such priorities should be re-examined. Kerschner, a special assignment teacher in Flores’ Alternative Education Division and 17-year veteran of the county’s education department, has also overcome a severe hearing disability. Recently her teaching peers named her one of 65 outstanding teachers, representing the county in California’s 1994 Teacher of the Year program. Kerschner finished that competition as a regional finalist.

“I’m really proud of her. She is an exceptional human being, an inspiration for others and extremely talented,” Flores says. “She also works way beyond the call of duty when it comes to serving our students.” Kerschner, he adds, also spearheaded the effort to develop programs to serve students with disabilities.

This recognition, Kerschner says, was “awesome.” She feels especially honored since the recognition came from her fellow teachers. “I also feel like I’m representing the interests of other teachers or students who are working to succeed in spite of their disabilities.”

Kerschner says she believes her award carries with it a special responsibility since she’s the first teacher from the 3-year-old Alternative Education Division to be honored by the Teacher of the Year program.

Operating from her Van Nuys office, Kerschner works with students and teachers in the juvenile court system, community schools and special education classes countywide. However, her story, a veritable pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps tale, almost never got started because of the very discouragement and lack of support that she has dedicated herself to helping students overcome. Kerschner says her first college stint ended more than 20 years ago after a professor told her that her hearing loss would restrict her to jobs such as flower arranging. “I was studying to be a teacher, but his comments discouraged me so much I ended up dropping out of school.”

She credits her husband for getting her back on track.

Kerschner says she was spending so much time volunteering at her children’s school, her husband suggested she go back to work. She got a job as an instructional assistant working with autistic students. Her husband encouraged her to pursue teaching. “Till then I relied on lip reading,” she said. “I told him I would need a hearing aid to do that and he said, ‘Make the commitment and we’ll get you one.’ ”

Kerschner says she had to go back to school to get her degree and also had to “un-learn” lip reading and learn how to talk using the hearing aid. She eventually wore two.

Kerschner is proud of having worked her way up the ladder from instructional assistant to special assignment teacher and head of the county’s tutoring program, which last year served 60,000 students.

However, she’s still not sure if she once hesitated because of the time and expense involved or lingering fears from so long ago.

“I am sure it’s the same kind of fear which faces our students with physical and learning disabilities.” Although Kerschner says a disability should not be used as an excuse and should not indicate a predisposition to delinquency, the percentage of students with disabilities in the juvenile courts education classes is approximately 10 points higher than in the general school population.

“I believe students will rise to the levels they’re encouraged to meet. You just have to give them the support they need.”

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