By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — October's Allen Samuels CDJR Teacher of the Month is Mackenzie Lutz from Trinity Catholic.
"I teach anatomy, physiology, biology, forensic science, 7th grade science and STEM," Lutz said. "I like having the break, so then I'm not just stuck with junior high kids all day. It's kind of nice to have some junior high and then some high school and then junior high again."
Nominator Mackenzie Birdsall said of Lutz, "She goes beyond her role as a teacher, not only does she help make sure we actually understand what we're learning on and works with us, she cares about us individually."
Lutz gives everything she's got when she's at school.
"Usually, I'm just so exhausted by the end of the day, because you put so much into the students," Lutz said. "Depending on how their days are going, it easily reflects on the teacher. If they're having a bad day, it's hard to not have that bad day with them. To me, that's more the harder part is, I feed off of their emotions so much. Usually, by the time I'm done, we've gone through a full cycle of emotions and I'm just exhausted by the time we're done."
It's a great day when Lutz gets to see the lightbulb come on for one of her students.
"I like to read my students and see how everything's going," Lutz said. "We like to make things kind of a big deal, so when somebody gets it, it's like, we get all excited for them. It's usually just reading their body language, where it's finally like, oh, my gosh, and you can just see the big sigh of relief that it finally clicked for them."
It's Lutz's compassion that caused Birdsall to nominate her. Lutz won a gift basket thanks to Allen Samuels CDJR. Nominations are being taken for the November award at Hutch Post.