Classroom Success Through Creativity

Lee Gabor, M.Ed., is a national award winning educator. In August of 2002, she became a teacher at Silberstein Elementary School, Dallas ISD, Dallas, Texas. She had owned and operated her own business for 25 years before being drafted to teach. During the first week in the classroom of her Title 1 school, she was lecturing to students in the way she had learned to do. A 6th grader called her Ms. Ga-boring. She immediately knew lecturing would not work with her mostly second language students. Ms. Gabor sought help from other educators as well as put her creative right brain lobe to work. She came up with ideas for stuffed characters and robotic toys who would become the teachers in the classroom. She also borrowed all the computers she could for students to use for creating PowerPoint presentations and providing lessons to their classmates. This book outlines, with photographs, the many ideas used in her two 6th grade and two 5th grade classes. Hands-on activities, songs, and dances, and technology used also are described. Ms. Gabor bases the measurement of her success on the fact that, to her knowledge, only one of her students quit high school before graduating despite predictions that half would do so.