Making A Difference Carol Kadzejs

Sun., Sept. 27, 1998

Amy Scribner

Special education teacher at Progress Elementary, Central Valley School District 4 years in education

“We’re probably going to make a mess today,” Carol Kadzejs announces to her students. “But that’s OK.”

For Kadzejs, messy is good, as long as learning is the end result.

On a typical morning, the students in her special education classroom may construct backgrounds for an Earth Day play or take a muddy outing to a Green Bluff orchard.

Last week, the kids - from grades 4, 5 and 6 - replicated quilts they’d seen during a trip to the Spokane Interstate Fair.

Dipping sliced vegetables into bright paint, students decorated their cloth sections with the silhouettes of green peppers, apples and corn on the cob.

The result: colorful quilts, painted hands and vividly streaked hair. No matter. Paint washes off, and the kids got a fun, slightly squishy art lesson.

“We do a lot of hands-on things,” said Kadzejs. “We learn best this way, for them to be able to touch, feel, smell and be creative.”

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