Mike Wolanin | The Republic First grade teacher Jennifer Ryshavy poses for a picture in her classroom at Taylorsville Elementary School in Taylorsville, Ind., Tuesday, March 8, 2022. Ryshavy was named as the recipient of the 2022 Edna V. Folger Outstanding Teacher Award.
Jennifer Ryshavy knew she wanted to be a teacher as early as first grade.
“I had a Lakeshore Learning kit that had report cards and a chalkboard and different teacher items in it, and I would play school,” she recalled. “And I would sit and watch, or I guess, look at the overhead projector, and I would try to figure out how I could make one of those at home. And I eventually did make one, out of flashlights and mirrors in my bedroom.”
Now, years later, Ryshavy teaches first grade at Taylorsville Elementary and has won the 2022 Edna V. Folger Outstanding Teacher Award.
The award is sponsored by SIHO Insurance Services, the Community Education Coalition, and the IUPUC Center for Teaching and Learning. Any full-time elementary or secondary educator from a Bartholomew County public, private or parochial school is eligible for the honor.
Ryshavy taught for one year at Beech Grove City Schools before joining Taylorsville Elementary in 2012. She taught second grade in her first year at the school before moving to first grade.
“I don’t know if it holds a special place in my heart because in first grade I wanted to become a teacher, but I just love first grade,” she said. “I love everything about it.”
She said that the best part of her job is the relationships she has with students, even after they leave. She also enjoys “being with kids and watching them learn and grow.”
The most challenging thing, she said, is that there’s “never enough time.”
“I wish I had more time during the day,” said Ryshavy. “Even though I enjoy summer, I wish we had more days. There’s just more I want to be able to do.”
During eLearning, Ryshavy found different ways to spend time with her students. If it was a student’s birthday, she dropped off a card and balloon on their front porch. There were a couple of times where she read bedtime stories over video chat. She did a virtual version of her “Lunch Bunch” sessions — where she and kids eat lunch together — over video as well.
One-on-one support was also important.
“I had a student in particular that was struggling to engage on the computer,” said Ryshavy. “And so, they would join in on the lessons, but then after school, before I went and picked my kids up, I would go and sit on their front porch. And we did the work together.”
She was “shocked” to find out she’d won the Folger Award.
“I don’t believe a teacher who’s honored to receive this award achieves it by themselves,” she said. “It wasn’t all me. My administrators, my former and current teammates, my students … and their families, and my own children have all influenced and shaped who I am as a teacher.”
Vice versa, her cousin and first grade teammate Mitchel Paswater, said that Ryshavy has made him “the teacher I am today.”
To some extent, education runs in the family, said Ryshavy. Her great-grandmother taught in Elizabethtown, and her great-grandfather was a teacher and later principal at a school. He was also the principal at Columbus High School for a year.
“Right now, my daughter says she wants to be a teacher, but I don’t know,” said Ryshavy. “That may change.”
As she said this, Anna, 4, was playing teacher with a friend, as she does every day after school in her mother’s classroom.
“She’s got a good model,” said Paswater.
