Student-teacher is Hall of Famer, but she’s ‘Atom Queen’ to her 5th-graders
Dressed as the Atom Queen, UF teaching intern Julianne Scherker dons a plastic tiara of bouncy ball protons and neutrons and small paddleball electrons as she leads her wide-eyed fifth-graders in a lesson on the structure of atoms. Her pupils swarm around her, peppering “her highness” with questions about this smallest particle of matter.
The young pupils don’t realize their teacher-in-training also wears another crown of sorts.
Last spring, Scherker, 22, became only the third UF College of Education student ever to be inducted into the University of Florida’s Hall of Fame. She was one of 21 inductees – including revered Gator quarterback Tim Tebow – selected for the Hall of Fame class of 2009.
“I’d see all these Hall of Famers’ pictures (in the Reitz Union gallery) starting from the early 1920s, and I’d think, wow, how cool is that to have left your legacy at UF,” she says.
Like UF’s latest Heisman Trophy winner, Scherker was a devoted Gator from the moment she stepped on campus. As an undergrad, the Miami native recruited for Teach for America and acted as a leader for the Florida Cicerones and for the UF “Dream Team” in Project Makeover, helping high-needs elementary schools improve their outdoor play and study areas. She also earned top grades and a spot in the Reitz Scholars program, and was recognized by UF as an Outstanding Four-Year Scholar and for Outstanding Undergraduate Leadership.
She’s now pursuing her master’s in education at UF while completing her required, fifth-year internship at Williams Elementary School in east Gainesville.
“I talk about my students all the time. I think about them constantly,” Scherker says.
She didn’t always want to be teacher, though. Until she was 10, she dreamed of being a movie star and using her fame for public good, like her idol, Princess Diana of the British Royal Family. Scherker was at her best friend’s house when she heard on TV that Princess Diana had been killed in the tragic auto accident. She was stunned and at that moment decided that a life of fame and celebrity was not for her.
Instead, she sought a new way to change the world – as a teacher.
“I firmly believe in the ripple effect,” she says. “Even if you only reach one student at a time, they’ll go and do something that will reach a few other people, and those people will do something to reach a few more people. You really never know how far the ripple goes.”
Scherker says she learns from her students, too. In her junior year, she participated in a mentoring program through UF’s elementary Education ProTeach program.
“I was paired up with a student who ended up changing my life,” she says.
Her student was 9 years old and couldn’t read or match sounds with letters. Scherker was determined he would learn to read by the end of the 10-week program. She knew he loved rap music and dancing, so together they made letter raps, choosing 5 words that started with the same letter and reciting them to a beat. They did this for every letter of the alphabet, and by the end of the program, he had read his first two books ever.
Scherker typed up all of their letter raps into a book, and presented it to him at their last session. She still follows his progress – he now has an A in fifth-grade reading and is a safety patrol.
“If a student isn’t successful, I don’t feel it’s the students fault,” she says. “It’s the teacher’s responsibility to figure out what didn’t work and try something else.”
Teacher Dicy Hannum, Scherker’s internship supervisor, says Julianne brings fresh ideas and infectious energy into the classroom.
“Julianne never puts a problem aside and, instead, works twice as hard to get to the bottom of any issue,” says Hannum. “Having her in the classroom feels like having another teacher with years of experience.”
Scherker, a theater minor at UF, now weaves the arts into her classroom lessons.
“It really is like a theater in the classroom. It‘s like a performance,” she says.
Community service has always been on her radar. During her spring break in 2007, Scherker spent 48 life-changing hours as a homeless person in Washington, D.C. She struggled to find food, clean water and shelter in the 40-degree weather of our nation’s capital.
“I was not only able to hear the stories of other people living in poverty, but I was able to create my own stories, see how others treated me – like I was subhuman,” she says.
After graduation, Scherker will join the 2010 Teach for America corps in New York City. She doesn’t know what grade she will be teaching yet, but it will be between grades one through six. Eventually, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. and influence educational policy so every student has access to a quality education.
“I want to be a mover and a shaker,” she says. “People always ask me what my dream job is, and teaching? That is it.”
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CONTACTS:
WRITER: Jennifer Tormo, Writing Intern, UFCOE News & Communications; jtormo@coe.ufl.edu
MEDIA CONTACT: Larry Lansford, Director, UFCOE News & Communications; 352-273-4137; llansford@coe.ufl.edu
