Fifth Grade Has
Changed Since
Cheryl Blau
Attended Leonhard
Elementary School

AMY J. MEHLER

Staff Writer

C beryl Blau has her
entire fifth grade at
Leonhard Elementary
School writing letters to
Georgia.
"Not the state of Georgia,"
laughed Miss Blau. "This
Georgia is a young,
Australian woman I met in
Thailand. It's the perfect
way to share a faraway
friend with my class and
sneak in lessons about
customs and places of an-
other continent."
Miss Blau asked her class
to make Georgia a huge
poster, which was hung
against one of the class
chalkboards. "Miss Blau
drew out the name, but we
colored it in," confided
Jasleen Kishmish, 10.
"Miss Blau always sur-
prises us," said 10-year-old
Anita Alosachi. "We love
it."
Miss Blau, herself a former
fifth-grader at Leonhard
School, feels both strange
and wonderful to be teaching
in the school where she was
once a student.
"My student days at
Leonhard were terrific," she
recalled warmly. "I had
positive and nurturing
teachers. If my students
walk away with the same
kinds of wonderment I did,
I'll have done my job."
While Leonhard School
was closed for winter vaca-
tion, Miss Blau videotaped
her trip to Thailand so she
could share it in class with
her students. She sent each
of her students picture
postcards.
"Everybody got different
messages," explained Miss
Blau.
"The one I got has a pic-
ture of an old man with
black teeth," Melissa Levi
said. "Miss Blau wrote me
that certain people make
them that way on purpose by
rubbing certain leaves on
their teeth." Melissa keeps
her postcard tucked safely
inside her new, lift-top desk.
"Who remembers how certain
Indian tribes lengthen their
necks," Miss Blau
asked students
one afternoon
after lunch.
Waving, air-
slicing hands
shot up. "They
wear big gold

78

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1992

rings around them," an-
swered Elizabeth Mathis
Rogers.
"What is the most polluted
city in Thailand?" asked
Miss Blau, glancing around
the room.
"It's Bangkok, isn't it?"
Danny Weiss answered from
the back.
Douglas Burda, listening
attentively, wanted to know
how to spell Thailand. "The
whole time I thought you
spelled it t-i-e, like the kind
you wear," he laughed, rock-
ing back and forth on his
chair.
Carol Ringvelski, once
Miss Blau's fifth-grade
teacher, said her former
pupil is just as involved and
enthusiastic now as she was
when she was her teacher.
"I best remember her
creative spirit and love of
reading and writing poetry,"
said Mrs. Ringvelski, who
still teaches fifth-graders, at
Leonhard School. "These in-
ner qualities were developed
and nourished over the years
and now are shared with her
own students."
Ironically, it was one of
Miss Blau's professors at Oc-
cidental College in Los
Angeles who suggested she
become an elementary
school teacher.
"I always thought I'd
choose a career really out of
the ordinary," Miss Blau
said. "Teaching seemed so
typical for a woman in this
day and age."
"I had so many interests, I
couldn't decide on any one
field," she said. "Then I
found out that I could con-
tinue studying a wide range
of subjects with an elemen-
tary education major."
Miss Blau, who's begun a
Ph.D. in education, is an ac-
complished dancer, guitarist
and computer programmer.
She also writes and makes
videos.
"I've learned to expect the
unexpected from Miss
Blau," said Carol Pike, prin-
cipal of Leonhard School.
"She is gifted in so many
areas, not the least of which
is her tenacity. When she
gets an idea in her head,
nothing stops her."
Miss Blau stood out when
Mrs. Pike interviewed can-
didates to teach fifth
grade. "I wanted a teacher
who was willing to approach
students from a success
orientation," she said. "I
wanted a teacher who didn't
believe in failing students.
That person had to be will-
ing to put in ex-
tra time to retest
students and
make sure each
child succeeded
at his and her
own pace."
Miss Blau,
already teaching in another

Cheryl Blau: "There's nothing
I'd rather be doing than
teaching"

Southfield elementary
school, applied for the posi-
tion. "I'm into restructuring
education; I'd always believ-
ed in pacing students," she
said. "I was eager to try this
philosophy out at Leonhard
School. I was sure this was
the right approach."

"Her enthusiasm was
overwhelming," Mrs. Pike
said. "She was practically
jumping out of her seat with
questions and ideas."

While Miss Blau was in
college, she concentrated on
methods of cooperative lear-
ning and concepts in process
writing. "I think it's impor-
tant for children to study

and find answers together,"
she said. "Students can
learn to write better from
studying and editing each
other's work than by reading
selections from textbooks."
In the last couple of mon-
ths, Miss Blau has put
several of her methods to the
test, "with tremendous
results."
"When I'm having a bad
day, there's nothing like a
visit to Miss Blau's room to
cheer me up," Mrs. Pike
said.
Miss Blau's class has
learned how to operate, care
for and carry sophisticated
camera and video equip-
ment; how to produce, write

and direct how-to videos for
Channel 35, Southfield-
Lathrup High School's cable
TV station; and how to write
250-word essays on Martin
Luther King's "I Have A
Dream" speech for a city-
wide competition.
"I wish more teachers
were like Miss Blau," said
Vivian Rogers, whose
daughter, Elizabeth, is in
Miss Blau's class. "She
doesn't put any limits on a
child's imagination. The
class is devoted to her be-
cause she takes an in-
dividual interest in them
and makes learning such an
enjoyable, creative experi-
ence." ❑