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August 30, 2008

Carl Junction teacher receives state recognition

By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — Kimberly Easter has 10,000 children.

Well, that’s what it feels like sometimes, Easter said, when she tabulates the number of students whose lives she’s touched.

As a Family and Consumer Science (FACS) instructor for 25 years, Easter has the difficult job of teaching many of the skills that students used to learn at home. It makes her feel like a mother to more than just her one biological daughter.

“You can’t learn some of this stuff out of a book,” Easter said. “These are kids that need these life skills to take care of themselves today. I want these kids to be able to take care of themselves.”

And she’s finally getting recognized for all her hard work. Earlier this summer, Easter was named FACS teacher of the year for the state of Missouri. She was nominated by several of the counselors at Carl Junction High School who work closely with her.

Because of that honor, Easter is also in the running for Missouri teacher of the year.

She is Carl Junction’s only FACS teacher and has more than 150 students each semester.

Easter is also the sponsor for the Family Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) club in Carl Junction and helped start the club in Joplin. She’s been recognized several times for her work with FCCLA as what she calls a “cheer coach,” but said it is rewarding to be noticed for her work as a teacher.

Easter’s classroom is more than a little different from her fellow teachers’ rooms. It includes a sink, stove, a washer and dryer and groceries. The class formerly known as human economics has matured. It’s not just for girls, she said, and attending doesn’t mean a student isn’t intelligent.

The times are changing, Easter said, pointing to the number of women in the work force and how many families don’t regularly sit down to a home-cooked meal.

Just last week, she had to give step-by-step instructions to a class on how to make dishwater because the students that did have experience in a kitchen had only ever used an electric dishwasher.

Besides the basics of cooking and cleaning, Easter uses her class periods to talk about the issues that face high-school students every day, but they rarely talk about. She teaches an entire course on child development, laying out the realities of having children and a family to the very high-school students that are considering whether to become sexually active.

“They’ll learn if they’re ready to have a family, when they will be ready, what goals they want to set in their lives and what they might miss out on if they become teen parents,” she said. “There’s nothing I’m bashful to talk about.”

Some of the other courses Easter teaches include fashion design, housing and interior design, and etiquette.

Carl Junction High School also teaches personal finance in its business classes.

Easter’s students get a loving dose of reality through field trips to birthing centers and the Ronald McDonald House as well as speakers from the Lafayette House and Children’s Miracle Network.

“Community service means a lot more to them when they actually see the people being affected,” she said.

And amid all that instruction, Easter also finds the time to be a listening ear to many of her students who feel they have nowhere else to go. She deals daily with teen parents, students with mysterious bruises on their faces and those without a dime to their names. But she keeps coming back year after year because her students need her.

“I’ve had so many students tell me they would have dropped out without having FCCLA,” she said. “You do it because you have kids who need you.”

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