Langhorst named Missouri Teacher of the Year

By: Natalie Shelton

NATALIE SHELTON/An assembly at South Valley Junior High School last week celebrates Eric Langhorst being named Missouri Teacher of the Year. “This is not about me; this is about us,” he told students and teachers. Later, outside his classroom, he said the junior high was “like family. It feels good to come to work every day. I feel fortunate for the chance to represent throughout the state the good things that happen here.”

Just before a fanfare assembly last week in the South Valley Junior High School gymnasium — complete with the high school jazz band, brightly colored balloons and a very energetic KC Wolf — a lone student piped up just before a surprise announcement: “Did somebody win the lottery?”

No, that wasn't the secret Principal Brad Armstrong and district administrators were keeping from students and teachers.

Instead, the entire student body had gathered to hear that one of their own, eighth-grade social studies teacher Eric Langhorst, had been named the 2007-2008 Missouri Teacher of the Year.

“There are great things going on in all the classrooms in Liberty Public Schools and in classrooms all across Missouri,” Armstrong said. “…So it's exciting for us to know we have the No. 1 teacher in the state.”

A representative from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education had called Superintendent Phil Wright the day before the assembly to say Langhorst had risen above the other five state finalists during interviews with a nine-member selection committee in Jefferson City.

In turn, Wright called Armstrong, who called Langhorst as he was returning by car from Jefferson City.

“He said, 'Do you mind if we have an assembly tomorrow? We want to announce that you're Missouri's Teacher of the Year,'” Langhorst said. “After hearing that, I looked down and saw I was going 80 miles per hour.”

When he returned to his classroom after the announcement, his students had already assembled themselves at their desks and gave him a standing ovation.

Soon after, a French class walked down the hall to his door chanting, “Monsieur Langhorst est numéro un!”

After the excitement subsided, he quickly began assigning students to parts for the reading of a play about the Boston Massacre.

Only two weeks into school, and his students are also already in the process of developing two newscasts about the Boston Massacre, one from a British perspective and one from an American. Langhorst wants them to see how the media shape their news, he said.

They've also used jelly sandwiches to examine stratigraphy, or the arrangement of rocks or materials in layers, to discover how time is recorded in layers of archaeology.

“I teach history to my students by the personal things that have happened more than about dates or the number of casualties in a battle,” he said. “I try to make history come alive for them.”

Students perhaps know him best for the technology he incorporates into classroom learning. Langhorst has developed “studycasts,” which can be downloaded into an iPod, MP3 player or personal computer to supplement learning. His Web site, www.speakingofhistory.blogspot.com, allows students to participate in a history blog along with the rest of the world.

Langhorst automatically becomes Missouri's candidate for the 2008 National Teacher of the Year award.

But before the national winner is named, Langhorst will be busy at speaking engagements, meeting with legislators and possibly speaking with the president, said Darryl Johnson, a Smithville High School communications arts teacher who was last year's Missouri Teacher of the Year.

As the previous Missouri Teacher of the Year, Johnson served on the panel that chose Langhorst for the honor.

“I called him last night to let him know what he might be expecting,” Johnson said. “One of the first things he asked me was, 'How many days of school will I miss?' I told him he'd be able somewhat to pick and choose what he would be comfortable with, and I also assured him his kids would be resilient; they'll be fine if he's not always there.”

Staff writer Natalie Shelton covers Liberty schools. She can be reached at 781-4941 or nshelton@npgco.com.