Working Magic Affection For Students And Love Of Teaching Help Shadle’S Kris Lindeblad Win Presidential Excellence Award

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much was in my bank account, nor what my clothes looked like. But the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child.

Kris Lindeblad, a teacher at Shadle Park High School, lives by that creed. It sits in a frame on her desk.

Before the start of first period on Friday, Lindeblad hugged three students, delivered a high-five and consoled a student whose mother had just discovered she has breast cancer.

“Sometimes it’s more than just math and social studies,” Lindeblad said. “Sometimes it’s about life.

Such sentiment is probably what helped Lindeblad win the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Math Teaching.

President Clinton named Lindeblad and three other teachers in the state winners of the award on April 30. She will be among 200 teachers who will be honored in Washington, D.C. in June.

The award carries a $7,500 cash award to pay for school equipment.

“I was really excited and pretty stunned when I found out I won,” Lindeblad said.

She said she was flattered to be selected as a finalist but didn’t believe she was going to win the award. The program is administered by the National Science Foundation.

“Few life influences are more powerful in forming the social and intellectual development of a child than a role model such as an outstanding teacher,” said Rita Colwell, director of the NSF.

Lindeblad agreed. It was two of her childhood teachers that served as her role models.

She decided to be a teacher in the fourth grade. Lorene Teague was her teacher that year at the now closed Stadium Grade School in Spokane.

“The way she worked with kids was magical,” Lindeblad said.

Later, Lindeblad, a Shadle Park alum, had Virginia Koller as a geometry teacher.

“She was the only female math teacher in the school at the time,” Lindeblad said. “That had a profound effect on me.”

She earned her undergraduate degree from Eastern Washington and her master’s from Gonzaga.

Lindeblad got her first teaching job at Glover Elementary School and was there for six years before switching to Shadle Park 20 years ago.

“I bleed green and gold,” Lindeblad said. “There is such a sense of community and family here. They’re going to have to carry me out of here in a green and gold box with bagpipes blaring.”

Lindeblad - also the senior ASB advisor - has a deep love for students and the school. During Friday’s advance placement calculus class, she apologized to a student for misunderstanding her as the girl explained a math problem.

“My bad,” said Lindeblad, which is young people speak for “my mistake.”

Then, Lindeblad broke out with a little Spanish during class when a student asked: “Habla Espanol?”

“Es muy malo,” Lindeblad said.

“Blad cracks me up,” said senior ASB rep Jodey Curalli. “She’s just really easy to get along with. She’s a real special lady.”

And “Blad” is what the students call her.

“The first time I called her Mrs. Lindeblad, she stopped me and said, `Please, call me Blad,”’ said senior Julie Sawatzky.

Even so, it’s not all fun and games in her class.

During a review of integration techniques in calculus, Lindeblad has the students gather in groups to work problems.

“Work together,” she said. “That doesn’t mean sitting at your desk and working the problem by yourself.”

It also doesn’t mean goofing around. One boy, among a group of boys sitting at the back of the class, caught Lindeblad’s wrath as he tried to retrieve a pencil that was stuck in a heater.

“Tom, you’ve been great all year long, but these last two weeks you’re driving me nuts,” she said.

Later in the class period, that group of boys started to get antsy.

“You’re all kind of muttering back there. … Guys in the cheap seats, please be quiet,” she said.

The boys immediately got quiet and got back to work.

Shadle Principal Emmett Arndt said he is amazed with Lindeblad’s ability to get along so well with students.

“She honors students’ ability to generate their own ideas,” Arndt said. “She has an incredible rapport with students, and it’s particularly evident when she teaches our leadership class. The enthusiasm is tremendous.”

ASB senior president Jamie Winchell said students know Lindeblad is sincere.

“She’s a second mom to all of us,” Winchell said. “She’s open-minded about things and is always there for advice.”