Leah Kres used to work with skeletons.
An anthropologist, the 43-year-old St. Albert resident got her start working with ancient bones and artifacts at the Royal Alberta Museum.
Then she had kids, and found the true love of her life.
"Although I love all the history and I love the anthropology, my heart is really where the kids are," she said.
She became a teacher at Albert Lacombe Elementary School, and has since spent countless hours teaching music to about 300 kids. She also paints murals, organizes concerts, runs the glee and cartooning clubs, and raises a family.
"I spend a lot of my waking and should-be-sleeping life planning," she said.
Kres's efforts were recognized last Friday when she was announced as a winner at the Edwin Parr Awards banquet. The award, which is given out by the Alberta School Boards Association, recognizes the top six new teachers in Alberta each year.
Kres was stunned when she heard her name announced as a winner.
"I was quite speechless, which is not entirely normal for me," she said.
Kres has taken on a big role at her school by teaching music, French, math and language arts in her first year, said Rosaleen McEvoy, vice-chair of the Catholic board.
"Leah is a wonderful example of the best in teaching," she said.
On a positive note
Kres said she spent about six years at Albert Lacombe as an educational assistant before getting her teaching degree from Concordia University College in March 2011.
Becoming a teacher was a natural step for Kres, said Alannah Van Bryce, a veteran teacher at Albert Lacombe who has kept a close eye on Kres's career.
"She's incredibly comprehensive about her subject matter," Van Bryce said, and knows how to use movement to keep kids engaged.
"She was one of those [educational assistants] you counted on."
Music is a tough course for a first-year teacher to run, said Albert Lacombe principal Joan Tod, who nominated Kres for this award.
"She's got nine classes a day, and different kids coming in every 35 minutes," Tod said.
Kres has to figure out how to get each of her students hooked on music – especially the energetic ones in the school's sports academy.
Kres said she does that using the Orff method – an approach that emphasizes movement and singing. Kids will spin a spinner to pick a popular song to dance to, for example, and use a lot of kinetic instruments like xylophones and Boomwhackers (coloured tubes that make notes when you smack them).
Kres also encourages students to behave by giving them "positive notes" whenever they show good manners, Van Bryce said. These notes (slips of paper with music notes on them) can later be exchanged for goofy prizes that Kres buys herself.
"Kids would come into [other] classes wearing these strange little glasses they pick out of boxes," Van Bryce said.
Each class also has to evaluate its behaviour each day to see if they move up a rank on a Billboard-style music chart, Kres said. Once they hit the top of the chart, they get a music fun day where they play whatever music games they want.
"I had chalk chucked at me [by teachers] when I was a kid and it wasn't a pleasant experience," Kres said, when asked why she didn't use more traditional ways of managing her students.
"I want to get to know the kids, and I want to have fun with them," she said.
Kres is an accomplished artist and painted the mural at the front of the school, Tod said. She also organized two school concerts at the Arden, and started the school's cartooning club.
You don't have to spend long with Kres to realize that she truly cares about kids, Tod said.
"Our school would be a lesser place without her."
Teaching is less of a job and more of a pleasure to Kres, she said.
"I really like to see the kids succeed," she said, and the pride they take in their accomplishments.
"That's what makes everything worth it – when they give you that big smile and hug at the end of the day."
