Heather Murphy, fifth grade English teacher at Hartselle Intermediate School, was recently named the 2014 Elementary Teacher of the Year for the Hartselle City School system.

Her entire 10-year teaching career has been spent teaching fifth grade English in the Hartselle City School system. She has previously taught social studies and reading in addition to English.

She started at Crestline Elementary School before moving to the intermediate school when it opened last year. Before teaching, Murphy worked at a television news station.

Murphy has a bachelor’s degree in broadcast communication from Freed Hardeman University and a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Athens State University. She plans to return for her master’s in instructional technology this summer.

Murphy also teaches the Tiger Pride class, an elementary journalism class for fifth graders. Class members help produce Tiger Pride, the HIS newspaper.

Murphy said she introduced the idea of a school newspaper to the principal and was able to start the class last year.

“When I was at Crestline, I had some kids express interest in a class that taught news writing and media basics,” Murphy said. “I talked to the principal at the time, who was Terry Graff, and we got the class going. Now students can take the class as an elective. We have certain students who stay after school once a week, and we work on putting the paper out on a bimonthly basis.”

Murphy said the class has really been a success with the students.

“I wanted to expose those who were interested to what the news business has to offer, and it lets me incorporate my journalistic background,” Murphy said. “They get to brainstorm as a class about what should go in the next issue of the paper. They look at what people liked that we could incorporate again and what school events and news there are to cover. We also have an activity page with Mad Libs and crosswords that keep students entertained.”

The new challenges and rewards keep Murphy excited about teaching every day and every year.

“Every year is different,” Murphy said. “You can always learn new ways of teaching and thinking from the students. Your instruction has to reach the needs of every child every day because each student learns differently.”

Murphy has a few key ways she tries to accommodate all sorts of learning types into her lessons.

“I use a lot of partner and group work to incorporate peer teachers,” Murphy said. “I also use modeling to give them a visual of what I’m looking for in an assignment. That gives them a goal and more of an idea of what is expected.”

Murphy said she would like to add more cross-curriculum teaching into her classes.

“I hope to have more cross-curriculum areas that will tie different subjects together,” Murphy said. “I want students to see the connections in different areas and see that all skills are important. This is something we should be working on more through the entire school system.”

Besides knowing that her students were taught what they needed to advance to the next grade, Murphy said she wants to make sure her students know their self-worth.

“I want them to be a person who sees they have a part in this world and that what they do matters,” Murphy said.

Heather Murphy, a fifth grade English teacher at Hartselle Intermediate School was named the 2014 Elementary Teacher of the Year for the Hartselle City School system. | Special to the Enquirer