On the road for excellence

Highlights of the past year?

Well, the Rose Garden introduction by President Bush and first lady Laura Bush in April has to rank near the top. The NASA space camp with the other state teachers of the year was amazing. Then there was the 10,000-strong National Education Association convention in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July with a surprise appearance by a former student.

And next month, Andrea Peterson, the music teacher from Granite Falls who in April was named National Teacher of the Year, travels to Japan for 10 days to talk with the Ministry of Education and visit an all-girls art school, among other sites on her itinerary.

"They've got quite the tour ready for me," she said, sounding only a little dazed last week before one of her more low-key stops, a speech to the Washington Alliance for Arts Education in Seattle.

Halfway through her year as the nation's leading ambassador for the teaching profession, Peterson has already visited 30 states. By the end of her tenure in May, she estimates she will have addressed more than 150 audiences, ranging from top CEOs to the national PTA to the Granite Falls/Lake Stevens Rotary.

Nerves haven't been a problem. A gifted musician who plays several instruments, she has had years of experience performing before audiences, leading school orchestras and choirs and speaking to gymnasiums full of families with restless siblings in tow.

At the heart of each speech, she said, is her message on the importance of community to education and on the ability of excellent teachers to inspire excellence in their students.

Last week, before the arts educators, she told the teachers what she acknowledged they already knew — how some unengaged, low-performing students have been transformed through artistic expression and a teacher who got to know them and called forth their best work.

Peterson recalled a fourth-grade girl who was a talented musician but couldn't read music and performed below grade level in every subject. Challenged to learn to read music in class, the student stretched intellectually and glimpsed her own potential.

"As soon as she learned to read music, everything else fell into place," Peterson told the arts educators. "She's now on the honor roll, in student government. Her confidence and self-esteem grew."

Peterson also has picked up talking points from her hosts. At a meeting of the Conference Board, a national business-leaders organization, she learned that the qualities employers say are most lacking in high-school graduates are leadership, concentration, teamwork, a strong work ethic and critical-thinking skills.

Referring again to her fourth-grade student in Granite Falls, Peterson told the arts educators, "she learned a strong work ethic in an elementary-school music class."

Peterson is frequently asked about the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), with its mandates for standardized testing and penalties for failing schools. She said there's no question the act has raised teachers' expectations of all students.

But she said she also knows first-hand that students with daunting barriers to learning may make tremendous strides toward standards and still be judged as failing under NCLB.

"My fear is the student with great success and amazing achievement who still sees himself as a failure," she said.

At her speaking engagements, Peterson also tells the story of arriving in Granite Falls as a rookie music teacher and finding only a handful of working instruments and no music program.

When the strapped school district wasn't able to fund the program to the extent she envisioned, she turned to the community to ask for support.

Today, the district of 2,400 students boasts two auditioned elementary choirs, an auditioned high-school chorus, a jazz band and marching band and musical performances that incorporate students' work in language arts, social-studies and history classes.

Peterson urges her audiences to embrace their schools in the same way Granite Falls embraced theirs.

"Our children are our great masterpiece waiting to be presented to the audience. We all need to show up," she said.

Lynn Thompson: 425-745-7807 or lthompson@seattletimes.com