Mustang teacher feels at home on childhood campus
MUSTANG — Mustang Elementary’s teacher of the year is media specialist Tanya Bernhardt, and her history with the school is long.
She went to elementary school there, did her student teaching there and ended up staying. Getting back to Mustang Elementary to teach, though, took some time.
After she graduated from Mustang High School, she became an apartment leasing agent. By the time she was 25, the apartments were sold and she had to start over.
Ready for a more stable career, she took an interest inventory test. Teaching and nursing came up. She earned her EMT certification and rode the ambulance.
“I did not like it. And if I didn’t like that, I knew I wouldn’t like nursing. From there, I went to teaching and did one class. I had to observe in a day care and absolutely loved it.”
At 26, Bernhardt returned to college, earning a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s of education in instructional media from the University of Central Oklahoma. Her children attended Mustang Elementary. The principal, Ann Morgan, who had been a fifth-grade teacher when Bernhardt was an elementary student, hired her to teach kindergarten after she did her student teaching there.
Bernhardt was assigned the room where she went through her own kindergarten year.
“The kids loved to hear that story of how I went to kindergarten in that room.”
Bernhardt assigned writing samples on the first day of school. Kindergarten students would try to write their names. When she taught second grade, she asked them to write about their favorite part of school. They would do the same exercise on the last day.
“My favorite part was at the end of the year, showing the growth from the start of school to the end of school,” she said.
'I love books'
Bernhardt taught kindergarten four years, second grade for one year and transitional first for four years. She’s been the media director for 11 years.
Her role as a media director extends beyond checking out books. She teaches classes every other week. She introduces students to genres and has a book club.
The internet has become the primary source for gathering information, but Bernhardt makes sure the students understand how to use printed material to find answers.
She teaches computer and leads a student broadcast team. Kids run the cameras and read the announcements over the school television system.
When Bernhardt started working in the library, the collection was so outdated, one volume talked about how someday a man would walk on the moon. One printed in the 1960s included information about how towels would be obsolete in the year 2000 because the world would have fullbody dryers.
“We started with 18,000 books. We have 10,000 now, and the average age of the collection is 2007. We are within 10 years, and that’s recommended.”
Bernhardt has been working at Mustang Elementary for 21 years. She still enjoys walking through the door every day. “I love books,” she said. “I believe the quote by Frank Serafini: ‘There is not a child who doesn’t like to read. There are only children who haven’t found the right book.’ ”
Bernhardt is one of 14 site teachers of the year.