A love for science
Southside teacher named Educator of the Year
Southside Middle School science teacher Jana Mead tells her students how much she hated that subject when she was their age, but now she wants her students to love science as much as she does.
“I was a really good student growing up, and I loved school, but … we would memorize, take a test; memorize, take a test. I hated memorizing things; it was hard,” she said.
Mead, 51, who grew up in Tennessee, said her attitude about science turned around in high school.
“It wasn’t until high school biology that I had any thought that any science could be fun. That was my first experience with labs and hands-on [learning],” she said.
Her hands-on teaching style and devotion to students have been noticed. The Rotary Club of Batesville named her Educator of the Year in June as part of its 2019 Community Awards.
“I was in shock,” she said.
The club describes the award on its Facebook page as being presented to “a teacher who goes out of their way to support their students. This person cares deeply for their pupils, and it shows through all their actions.”
Amanda Dickey, secretary and past president of the Rotary Club of Batesville, said the person who nominated Mead for the award called her “very caring and compassionate with her students.”
“She takes the time to learn about the children’s needs outside and not
just educational issues,” the nominator wrote. She also was called a “fearless leader” of Junior Beta Club at the school, spending countless hours outside of class to prepare students to compete at Junior Beta Conventions.
Mead’s work as a 4-H leader and involvement with the food pantry on campus, which was started by the 4-H club, was highlighted, too.
“She arrives at the food pantry on some mornings at 7:15 (driving in from 35 minutes away) and stays after school many days to make sure the families of the children who attend the Southside School District have food to fill their pantries.”
Mead said the award could have gone to one of many deserving educators.
“Independence County has four big major public schools. I love where I’m teaching, and I have been very happy raising my children in this school; my husband grew up in this school. My heart is definitely in Southside school. For the community to honor me that way as a Southside teacher, I thought, ‘This is really, really neat.’”
Her desire to teach started when she was in elementary school.
“I decided in fourth grade I wanted to be a fourth-grade teacher,” she said. “Ironically, that’s the one grade I’ve never taught.”
Mead said her mother, a stay-at-home mom, was nurturing and also served on the school board in Tennessee and volunteered at school. Mead’s father sold boiler equipment to power plants.
Mead went to Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana, and received a degree in Christian education and religion, and she earned her teaching certificate at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.
“I got sidetracked,” she said. “When I was in college, I decided I wanted to be a youth minister.”
She was living in Batesville, and she became a youth minister at First United Methodist Church, where she met her husband, Jeff.
Mead worked at the church from 1990-92 and decided she really did want to teach. She didn’t just teach; she helped start a school. She and another teacher helped the then-pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in Batesville start a school.
“I wanted to start a school and be in ministry through academics,” she said. The school started with two grades and ended up serving preschool through eighth-grade students.
Mead was there for nine years until the school disbanded after a pastor change, she said.
“It was a fabulous school,” she said, and all the teachers were certified. She said two of her four children attended the school.
Mead got a job teaching sixth-grade science at Southside, where she’s been for about 15 years. Mead teaches life science, physical science and Earth science.
“We do a lot of hands-on, and I teach kids criticalthinking skills,” she said. “Science is all about questioning and asking, ‘Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green?’ and then investigating why. That’s what I want to instill in these kids — to ask questions, then find answers.
“We do a lot of quests. They decide what they want to learn about, then go investigate that and bring it back to the class.”
Asked for an example, Mead said, “I’m sitting here staring at my turtles. I love turtles, and we were at the lake, and I found them, and I was like, ‘Hey, I want them for my classroom.’”
The turtles’ names are Shelly and Sheldon.
“[The students] learn about life cycles, when you’re looking at life science and looking at hereditary or looking at adaptations, why things live the way they do or look they way they do,” Mead said.
“The kids, if they wanted to hold the turtles, if they wanted to feed the turtles, they have to prove they knew about them,” she said. “They did their own research and had to share with the class, ‘What do these turtles eat? What do they need? Do they ever get on land?’
“I didn’t give them any questions. They had to ask their own questions about turtles and bring [the answers] back to the class in some way. I’m also really big on that; they have to be able to talk to the kids. Some are insanely shy. To look at somebody’s eyes and share their thoughts is so hard for them. They just share with their classmates, ‘Here’s what I know about these turtles.’ Sometimes they’ll make posters or PowerPoints. We’re talking sixth grade; we’re not talking anything elaborate here.”
She said the students’ reports often lead to other questions: “Do they eat carrots? What’s bad for them? Then, another student will research those questions. That was an all-year project of them bringing in more information. It’s totally not in any kind of standards for the school,” she said.
This fall, Mead said she plans to bring a guinea pig to the classroom — the offspring of her daughters’ pets.
Mead and her family live on a farm in Concord, about 35 minutes from Southside schools, where they have chickens and ducks and raise registered polled Herefords — quite a change for a woman who had exactly one dog when she was growing up.
“I grew up a city girl. Growing up on a farm — it’s all new. Well, not anymore. God has special plans for all of us, and I think this is what he always planned for me. My kids have just blossomed growing up here,” she said.
The Meads have four children: Jackson, 24; Braden, 21; Kate, 19; and Annaleigh, 10.
Mead is so comfortable around animals that she sponsors the Southside 4-H Club. The club started a food pantry on the Southside campus, and it’s a passion of hers. It is open on Thursdays for the Southside community or even other communities, she said, as well as anytime a Southside student’s family needs help.
A clothes closet was added in March, she said, adding that recently, her 4-H students worked from 7:30 in the morning until 8 o’clock at night getting the clothes organized. An open house to give away clothes and backpacks is scheduled for Aug. 12 at the school.
“I love teaching, but that’s why I do what I do,” she said. “I really do try to do everything I can for our kids.
“Really, I just want the kids to love school, and I just want my students to love learning and love being a part of the family of our school. … I want them to say, ‘Hey, that wasn’t so bad; school’s not so bad,’ and know they are loved. Some of them have spent their whole summer sitting in front of a TV or computer screen with nobody talking to them and nobody listening to them, and I just want to nurture them and love them.”
Mead said that because of rapid growth in the district, this fall, she will teach science in fourth, fifth and sixth grades.
“It’s kind of daunting to think that’s all three grade levels, but people do it,” she said.
“I’m getting excited; it’s been a lot of prep time this summer learning new curriculum. I’m probably more excited about school starting than I have been in a long time. It’s my very first science class in fourth grade in my 20-something years of teaching.”
More students mean more chances to help them love science.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 3270370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.