LUTHERAN QUILTERS – Members of the Quilts for Comfort Group stand between pews draped with some of the 205 quilts they made, in the Sitka Lutheran Church Tuesday. The group made the quilts for five local non-profits and one in Anchorage. The remaining quilts are sent to Lutheran World Relief which  distributes them to places around the world in need, such as Ukraine, as part of Personal Care Kits. Pictured are, from left, Helen Cunningham, Kathleen Brandt,Vicki Swanson, Paulla Hardy, Kim Hunter, Linda Swanson and Sue Fleming.  (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

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Daily Sitka Sentinel

Sitka Math Teacher Makes National Mark

By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Last winter, some of the finest minds in the mathematical world were gathered in a classroom to ponder logistical equations as part of a research project they were conducting on animal behavior and interactions with humans.
    They were studying the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. They are second graders.
    More importantly, they’re the second-grade pupils of Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary School teacher Cynthia Duncan, a recently announced Alaska finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
    When Duncan received the finalist email, she was where she spends most of her time, in the classroom.
    “I was excited,” she said. “It was an honor just being named a finalist.”

Cynthia Duncan (Sentinel Photo)

    Duncan is one of only three finalists for the 2018 Alaska award, with the winner to be selected by a committee in Washington, D.C. One math and one science teacher will be selected from each state and four territories, for a total of 54 in math and 54 in science. The ultimate finalist will be announced by the White House at a future date. The 2016 winner was announced last summer and the 2017 winner has not yet been announced. Duncan may have to wait a year.
    The application process was just as long.
    After being recommended by a past winner of the science honor, Sitka teacher Rebecca Himschoot, Duncan needed letters of support from principals and parents. She wrote nearly 25 pages explaining her philosophy of teaching math and how it helps her students, and then videotaped a classroom lesson.
    Hence the Iditarod.
    “It was a really cool lesson on the Iditarod, but it was math related,” Duncan said. “So I was teaching the kids how to subtract using regrouping...”
    The students were using GPS tracking to follow the Iditarod. Each student selected a musher. While tracking, they used the total mileage of the race, subtracting the distance a musher traveled each day and calculating the remaining distances.
    They became racing fans.
    “Oh yeah,” Duncan said. “They even got into the background of their mushers and started doing research, calculating past winnings to determine which musher they liked. They watched their dogs and how many dogs were dropped at checkpoints. They studied their rest times. They really get into the whole science behind the race. They love it. In the past we have watched the Iditarod ending live if it happened to be during school hours.”
    Duncan’s math enthusiasm does this to her students. It fills their minds with a passion to explore every nuance of an equation.
    “I always liked math because it was really clear-cut,” Duncan said of her first desire. “I felt like there was a right answer and a wrong answer. I did not like English so much because it was kind of blurry, but math I could get into. I didn’t understand why things were the way they were in math until I was in college.”
    Duncan attended the University of Alaska Southeast Sitka campus. A professor suggested she be a math tutor. She knew she was good in math but didn’t quite understand why she was doing it.
    “When I started tutoring I really became fascinated with the reasoning behind it,” she said. “It all kind of clicked and made sense to me. I was working on my teaching degree at the time so it was kind of a natural fit.”
    Duncan was born in Oregon. Her mother was Sitka-born so the family moved back for Duncan’s first grade year and she grew through the Keet Gooshi Heen, Blatchley, Sitka High, and UAS Sitka campuses.
    “Math was fascinating and intriguing,” she said. “With math so much of it is how you approach it. Too often I see kids come in with low self-esteem about math or just thinking it is boring or not important. So I always try to make it my mission to change their mindset. Definitely all children are different but in education there is this big movement called the Growth Mindset and it is about ‘you are not limited to things... you can be as smart as you want to be, you just have to work at it... and when we make mistakes it is OK.’ If you fail at something use it to improve at something else.”
    Duncan noted that some kids say they’re not good at adding. The mindset is to have them add a ‘yet’ after that statement, meaning they can work at getting better.
    “It is just having that confidence building into their self esteem and knowing that it is okay to make mistakes and you can improve,” she said.
    Duncan left high school after her sophomore year in 1995, got married and started a family. She started college, obtaining her GED just before earning her bachelor’s in education.
    Duncan’s pioneer spirit began with her grandparents, Wanada and John Holic, who came to Sitka in the 1940s and met while teaching at Sheldon Jackson.
     “I don’t know what led me down this pathway,” Duncan said. “I think it was just having some really good teachers in my life that inspired me.”
    Among the many inspiring local math teachers, she named Lyle Sparrowgrove, Dan Langbauer, Theresa Holt, Joe Liddle, Virgil Fredenberg and Lee Graham.
    Duncan said she loves science, art, technology, reading, writing, and making and creating.
    “As an elementary teacher I get to do all those things,” she said. “I have been offered other positions with other organizations but I just have to say no because I get to work with kids and do all those really fun things I love to do every day.”
    Duncan said she remembers sitting in her college counselor’s office and stating she wanted to be a teacher.
    “I had left the school system and now I wanted to go back and teach in it,” she said. “I just felt like it was a gift. I could do the things I loved to do. I think teaching is just the natural fit because I get to experience so much.”
    Duncan said her favorite thing to do with her students is learn with them.
    “I am not at the front of the room giving lectures,” she said. “I’m learning beside them and I am just a guide on this journey.”
    Duncan related learning in her master’s in mathematics education program (in which she was named outstanding graduate) about differentiated instruction, how to reach kids no matter at what level they are. She planned her internship around her teaching schedule. That internship would involve Minecraft, the computer game in which virtual blocks are used to create everything from dizzying towers to entire cities.
    “I was helping high school students all over the world after they were reading ‘Lord Of The Flies’ and I knew nothing about Minecraft,” she said. “I asked my elementary kids, ‘who wants to teach me how to play Minecraft,’ because I didn’t understand it. They all raised their hands, they all volunteered to stay in at recess and lunch time to teach me this. They were so excited to be teaching me something they knew. It was a really powerful moment and has lasted with me a long time.”
    That moment led to her class creating a Tlingit village in Minecraft and bringing in elders to expand the venture. Duncan also became a Minecraft educator mentor for Microsoft and now helps other teachers around the world. Her work has been written about and published. She has led numerous professional training sessions, inservices and presentations, has informational websites, and a host of honors and accolades. In September she traveled to Seoul, South Korea, as one of four U.S. educators to speak about Transforming Education with Innovation at the e-Learning 2018 Korea International Conference.
    “It was an amazing experience,” she said. “I like to help my students to understand that even though we live on a remote island in Alaska we are not limited to what we can do in this connected world. I can’t wait to see what my students become. One of the things about the fourth industrial revolution, and preparing students for it, is we don’t know what our student’s jobs are going to look like. Nowadays when you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up they say a YouTuber – just five years ago that didn’t exist as a job but now it does.
    “We just don’t know what their jobs will be. We do know that they will have to be problem solvers and have to be designers and have that thinking mindset. I hope to instill that, not just in mathematics, but in everything so I know I am giving them a good foundation. For instance, we have a 3D printer and the students are creating some amazing things in here. I cannot wait to see where this takes them in the future.”
    Duncan’s own children have gone through or are about to finish their time in the Sitka schools, yet learning from mom was more of an issue for dad. When Duncan was a UAS tutor she had to fill in for a math instructor in a class that included her husband as a student.
    “Trying to tutor your kids or your husband is impossible,” she laughed. “They don’t listen. And he was not a good student. It’s not the same. It has to be other kids.”
    Duncan said her expectations for her students and their performance is high.
    “And they always rise to it,” she said. “I don’t underestimate them and what they can do and I don’t put limits on them. I think that is important.”
    Her students, whether following sled dogs, printing objects, solving equations, or building civilizations, never cease to amaze her.
    “Every single day some kid thinks outside the box, explains how he solved something in a totally different way than I would have done it and my mind is blown,” she said. “That is what I love about working with kids. Their creativity on how they approach things when they are not given limits is just mind blowing.”





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20 YEARS AGO

March 2004

Advertisement: Tea-Licious Tea House & Bakery 315 Lincoln Street Grand Opening! Freshly Baked Scones, Cakes & Pastries Innovative Salads, Soups & Sandwiches Harney & Sons Tea. Lunch * Afternoon Tea * Supper.

50 YEARS AGO

March 1974

Photo caption: National Republican Chairman George Bush takes a drink of water offered by Jan Craddick, Sitka delegate, during the Republican convention held here. Mrs. Craddick explained to Bush that the water was from Indian River, which means, according to local legend, that he will return.

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