Meet the Teacher: She loves building the blocks of learning for kindergarteners – MLive.com

JACKSON COUNTY, MI – Few things are as important to Annmarie Zalud as making the crucial kindergarten years engaging and enlightening for her young students.

Zalud, 42, has been teaching elementary-aged kids for the past 15 years, and is now in her second term of teaching kindergarten at George Long Elementary School in Grass Lake.

She gained a love of teaching at an early age, with her mother Margaret Remenar working for many years as an elementary teacher at Ovid-Elsie Area Schools. While attending that same district, Zalud’s ambition for learning grew into a fascination with brain science.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in brain behavior and cognitive sciences from the University of Michigan in 2005, Zalud took jobs as a substitute teacher while considering her next career move. Her quick trip back into the world of education ended up reigniting her passion for teaching.

Zalud returned to school in more ways than one. She earned a degree in elementary education and a masters in curriculum and instruction from Western Governor’s University while she taught at Ovid-Elsie.

When her husband Brian Zalud accepted his current position as athletic director and assistant principal at Grass Lake High School, Zalud moved to the same district. She’s worked for the past seven years.

Zalud spoke with MLive/Jackson Citizen Patriot about day-to-day energy and excitement her students bring to class, and the responsibility she feels for stoking the fires of student curiosity in the most formative years of their learning.

Jackson Citizen Patriot: Was there a specific moment or experience that inspired you to get into the field of education?

Annmarie Zalud: I always wanted to be a teacher when I was a little girl because my mom was an elementary teacher, and I would spend time in her room after school pretending to be a teacher. I had a little chalk board at home that I enjoyed playing with. As I got older, I wasn’t quite sure if that’s what I wanted to do, and brain research was very interesting to me – hence my degree from University of Michigan – and I thought I could go into that field. When I graduated, I wasn’t sure about which way I wanted my career to take, so I started subbing while I was thinking about it, and I fell in love with teaching

JCP: Why was teaching in the field you’re in such a calling for you?

Zalud: I think it’s the excitement (kindergarteners) bring every single day. Everything is new to them, everything opens up that world of wonder for them, and it’s hard not to share their excitement when you work with them. To know that you are part of all those core memories in kindergarten – the 100th day of school, dressing up for Halloween, having a balloon parade for Thanksgiving – all of it is very new and exciting and the memory-making is just so important.

JCP: Is there a specific moment from your career that you would consider to be the most rewarding?

Zalud: In kindergarten, it’s really where you open up their eyes to learn how to read, and I had a specific moment last year when I was teaching kindergarten for the first time. We were working so hard learning how to sound out words and blend them together to read, and we always practiced on the carpet, whisper-reading to ourselves. For the first time, I asked if anybody wanted to raise their hand and try reading out-loud to the class, and I had a student who really wanted to. They did an amazing job, sounding out and reading the whole sentence, and the look on her face of excitement – of knowing “I just read that all on my own” using all the skills that I had taught her was an amazing moment. And after that, all of the other kids raised their hands and wanted to show me too.

JCP: The field of education has changed and evolved in several ways in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic (remote learning is more prevalent, some students have struggled with learning loss, etc.) — in what ways, if any, have you changed or evolved as a teacher in the past few years?

Zalud: I think I’ve evolved mostly in the area of technology. Teaching remotely, I had to learn how to make digital presentations to share with kids, and we’ve been able to carry that on into our day-to-day lessons now. We have these great interactive boards where we can present our material all day long and play videos and do everything that we need for our lessons. It gives a great visual for our students throughout the day, and they enjoy writing on it. Technology is an area where we’ve really come a long way since the COVID pandemic.

JCP: What is your favorite aspect of your job?

Zalud: It definitely is the kids. Specifically, being a part of their kindergarten experience where we’re creating that love of learning is so important. We want them to learn to love school – that it’s a place where they feel loved and safe and they get to do fun things. To be a part of those experiences with them every day is really, really rewarding, and it makes me look forward to coming to work every day with these happy, smiling, fun kids that are ready to learn. I also have a great team of kindergarten teachers that I always look forward to working with. They make it fun as well as the kids.

If you know a K-12 educator in Jackson County who might make a good subject for the weekly “Meet the Teacher” series, send an email with their contact information to mkukulka@mlive.com.

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