The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Local teachers make a difference
Two teachers featured in Cleveland Magazine
Some students may believe their teachers are only meant to go by the book and guide them during their educational careers.
However, there are many teachers who do much more.
Two Lorain County teachers — Holly Miller at Amherst’s Marion L. Steele High School and Brian Scanlan from Lorain County Joint Vocational School in Oberlin — do more.
Miller and Scanlan are featured in Cleveland Magazine’s January issue of 2018’s 30 Most Interesting People in Northeast Ohio.
A special education teacher for over 16 years, Miller also has been a fighter of psoriatic arthritis and a fused spine.
When she is not teaching, she is spending time
with her family and daughter, Ruby, 2, or is at the gym.
Having dealt with back issues for the majority of her teaching career, Miller said exercising has been a major part of her life.
She said she has taken it more seriously in the last few years to not only relieve stress from her back, but it benefits her mentally.
At her gym, Miller said enjoys participating in strongmen competitions where participants lift objects like stones, kegs and pulling cars.
With her interest in competitions, she found one in Columbus that focuses on people with disabilities.
Miller has won competitions and qualified and won the World’s Strongest Disabled Man’s women seated division in London in September 2017.
She said she competed with women in her division who have issues similar or worse than hers.
After going through tough challenges, she even took home a title in her division.
Miller said she was happy she could compete where she can do everything without challenges being modified.
“It was neat to compete with people from all over the world that have similar issues or worse,” she said. “It was nice to know I had a chance at winning something because I can’t work out the same as others.”
Miller said her family has been supportive.
After winning the London competition, Miller qualified to compete in the Arnold Sports Classic in Columbus in March.
Scanlan’s journey
Scanlan, who has worked at the JVS for nine years, teaches computer design and digital media arts at the JVS.
He also teaches archeology at Lorain County Community College and is head field supervisor at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Archeology.
At JVS, 3D printing has grown in the program’s curriculum, Scanlan said.
The 3D printer includes computer design and digital photo editing.
Scanlan used the 3D printer to assist a student’s guinea pig called Luna that broke its two back legs and was paralyzed.
Last year, he was approached by the student and another staff member to create a wheelchair for the guinea pig.
With the help of the 3D printer and Scanlan’s students, they created the wheelchair for Luna.
Scanlan said he was still learning to master the 3D printer and hadn’t done any major work with it yet.
After he looked up files for a 3D dog wheelchair and all of its individual parts, he used general measurements for Luna and began a school project with his freshman students.
When printing out pieces from a 3D printer, he said it can take time because prints can fail at times.
After successfully printing out all pieces, the student brought Luna in to test the wheelchair.
Scanlan said Luna was not excited about the wheelchair, but used it and pulled herself along.
Today, Luna is OK and happy.
Scanlan said the wheelchair helped, but Luna did not like it and motivated herself to move and regain her strength back.
He said working on a project as a class showed his students how to get involved when helping someone or an animal in need.
The 3D printer creates a design out of plastic that can melt into shapes and another that starts with resin that can be molded by a laser.
Scanlan said if they need something in class, they now look how to create it.
“This was a time they got to act with something more peculiar,” he said describing lab programs. “It was fun and it was a good time to work as a team.”