HELENA — Jenn Warner has taught for 12 years and has had a class of Kindergarteners at Eastgate Elementary in East Helena for four years. Warner is among seven Montana educators who won the Presidential Mathematics and Science Teaching Award. Warner applied for the award in 2022, and it was announced that she won on Jan. 13. The award is the highest national honor bestowed upon educators in the United States.
She has wanted to pursue teaching since childhood. “I always love teaching. I used to get my stuffed animals, line them up, and play school. I used to make my sister play school with me.”
Warner shared with MTN some teaching tactics she uses in the classroom.
“We're very hands-on. We're all about playing games. We're about visuals. We're about learning together and working together. So, I do a lot of think pair share. We're always having class discussions. And in kindergarten, too, you want to make sure that you're always keeping them engaged.”
The nomination and application process were beneficial for Warner as she used it as an opportunity to look at her teaching tactics. “This was really a way for me to dive into my teaching, making you reflect on it. It's a very long application process. You write many, many essays. You have to record yourself teaching you're very vulnerable to, you know, people judging you and what you're doing. And it just means a lot to really, to have done my best.”
Jenn’s husband, Jake Warner, is a math teacher at Capital High School and has also won the award. She says sharing a profession with her spouse has been a great resource.
“My husband's a teacher, and it's just, it's really great to have that collaboration, basically, and to be part of something bigger than what you are teaching is really, really important. It's one of the most important jobs we could ever have.”
When they leave her classroom, Warner hopes students know that “Mistakes are okay, help you grow and help you learn.”
