Photo Courtesy of Elissa Malespina
Elissa Malespina, former South Orange Middle School librarian, left, and Melissa Butler, a SOMS sixth-grade language arts teacher, celebrate winning Bammy Awards, recognizing their teaching excellence, at a Sept. 27 ceremony in Washington, D.C.
MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE — To win a Bammy Award is to be recognized by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences as one of the best educators in the United States — a tremendous and rare feat.
To have two educators from the same school win in the same year is exceptional. Yet remarkably, South Orange Middle School recently accomplished just that.
Melissa Butler, a sixth-grade language arts teacher at SOMS, and Elissa Malespina, the school’s former librarian, claimed the Bammys for Best Middle School Teacher and Best School Librarian at the 2014 ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 27. Butler and Malespina were both chosen as winners by the academy’s board of governors after being selected for the shortlist in their categories from hundreds of nominees from across the country.
For Malespina, who now works as the coordinating supervisor of educational technology, media and computers for the Parsippany-Short Hills School District, the Bammy came as a pleasant surprise.
“I am shocked and honored by the award,” Malespina told the News-Record in an Oct. 1 phone interview. “I was in a category with these amazing librarians, and I was just shocked that I was even listed in the top five of this amazing group. So to win was something I never thought was going to happen.”
Butler also said she was honored to win in her category, and lauded the academy for recognizing teachers for all the important work they do.
“There is so much to celebrate in our profession, yet many times teachers go unnoticed in the professional world,” Butler told the News-Record in an Oct. 6 email. “The Bammys brought forth the chance to celebrate all that is right in education. We should celebrate teachers every day.”
Malespina and Butler are no ordinary educators, though. What set both apart from the other nominees was their implementation of technology in the classroom to enhance their students’ learning experience. Working together, they used video chat service Google Hangouts to allow Butler’s class to participate with other schools in virtual debates, which were judged by experts across the United States and Canada. Their students were also able to use the system to interview experts on the topics about which they were learning.
Additionally, Butler and Malespina utilized social media platforms like Edmodo and Twitter to further link their students to people outside their classroom walls.
The Bammy Awards were just one form of recognition the two have received for their efforts. Last year they won the Edublog award for Best Use of Video & Media, and their video projects will soon be featured in a PBS documentary. They have also both spoken at numerous educational conferences.
Butler said the reason she uses technology in class is because it introduces her students to skills they will need to survive in an economy that is becoming more based in computer skills.
Malespina is currently writing a book on augmented reality, a technological tool she uses that allows students bring two-dimensional objects to life; she agreed that implementing technology is the way of the future for teaching.
“It has made education much more engaging and interactive for students,” Malespina said. “It enhances the learning that can occur. It allows for anytime, anywhere learning to occur, which in the past could not really happen. And it has just allowed things to open up more. We are allowed to break down those classroom walls in ways we never could do before and connect with others from around the world. So much more can occur because of technology.”
Both teachers acknowledged the support of the administration at SOMS and the South Orange-Maplewood School District as instrumental in their pursuit of innovative teaching methods. Malespina said Principal Joseph Uglialoro was particularly helpful in giving her the leeway to take risks and try new methods.
But in an Oct. 2 email sent to the News-Record, Uglialoro was quick to give the credit back to Butler and Malespina.
“We, as a school community, are so fortunate to have educators who are so committed to innovation and excellence in the middle school classroom,” Uglialoro said. “Melissa and Elissa are educators who have been far ahead of the pack in thinking about how technology can be used to enhance teaching and learning and to reimagine the middle school classroom.”
With all the technology they have pioneered and accolades they have earned, it would be easy for Butler and Malespina to get caught up in their own success. Yet both made it clear that what matters most to them are their students, whom all their work has benefitted.
In fact, even though she enjoys her new administrative position, Malespina said she misses working with her students.
“I miss the joy and the enthusiasm of the students when I saw them do something new, their excitement for learning and their willingness to try something new,” Malespina said.
“I just had a lot of fun with the students, and I really miss that. No matter how bad my day would be going, when I was with the students they would always make me laugh.”
Butler loves helping students so much that she said her next professional goal is to become a principal so that she will have a greater reach and impact on them. In pursuing that goal, she expects to receive her master’s degree in educational leadership from Montclair State University in August 2015.
In the meantime, Butler plans to continue to use her own love of learning to benefit her teaching at South Orange Middle.
“My students are my life outside of my immediate family,” Butler said. “Education is my absolute true calling in life and being a student for life, where I assume the role as lead learner, is what is valued in my class daily. We are all learners.”