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Dobson named Steeleville Educator of the Year

Posted March 10, 2015 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler The Herald Tribune

STEELEVILLE -- As part of the Steeleville Chamber of Commerce's annual dinner, the 2014 Steeleville Educator of the Year was announced on Monday.

That honor went to Erin Dobson, who is in her seventh year of teaching at Steeleville High School. She teaches World History, American History, Government and Sociology at the school.

"It is pretty awesome," Dobson said of the award during a Wednesday interview with the Herald Tribune. "It's definitely a great honor and it's nice to see people appreciate your hard work."

Dobson, who is originally from the Bloomington-Normal area, said she knew she wanted to be a teacher ever since third grade.

"When I was in third grade, I had an awesome teacher who just made learning fun and I've loved it ever since," she said. "In fifth grade, I had an excellent History teacher."

Dobson said the most fascinating part of teaching is when students can connect it together.

"I have some students in World History and in American History and they're in completely different time periods," she said. "In my World History class, we just got done with the French Revolution and in my American History class, we just got done teaching about World War I."

Dobson said her students would be able to connect the two topics based upon class discussions.

"I would say 'This reminds me of something' and the students that I have in both classes, without being prompted, would say 'Oh yeah, this reminds me of this.'

"It's really neat that they can apply what they learned to different time periods of history and see how things repeat themselves."

In American History, Dobson's students are learning about the 1920s, including the slang of the period.

"There's some that we still use today," she said. "'Baloney' is one from the 1920s and they weren't able to get 'Fire Extinguisher,' which was a chaperone on a date.

"Some of them they've heard before like 'Bump off' is a gangster term to kill."

Dobson said she likes it when students take an active role in learning. She shared a recent story of a student who watched the State of the Union and was able to relate to it through previous in-class discussions.

"The student told me they watched the State of the Union and this was not a student I thought would watch State of the Union, but they did and they were telling me about it," Dobson said. "They were relating it back to class discussion and that's what I want to see, an active learner where it's not just what happens in school, but in society in general."

In terms of upcoming topics, Dobson said her American History class will begin discussing how World War I led to World War II.

"The 1920s is when you begin to see a big shift in debt," she said. "And whether or not debt was OK to have. That's when installment plans developed, so it will be interesting to see if (the students) think debt is a good thing to have.

"Debt is something you're always going to have, but there's certain debts you shouldn't have."

In Sociology, Dobson's students are getting ready to present on Civil Rights - either events or leaders.

World History students are getting ready to tackle a unit on industrialization, while Government students will begin to discuss political parties.

"I usually ask (the students) where they think they fall and then we take a political spectrum quiz," Dobson said. "I ask them questions and they rate themselves on a scale of very much agree to very much disagree.

"Often times, they say 'I thought I was much more extreme' and, as most people do, they fall moderately."

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