Teacher spotlight

Editor's note: This is a continuation of the Osceola Sentinel-Tribune's "Teacher spotlight" series.

Walk into Steve McWilliams fourth grade classroom at Clarke Community Elementary School and some of the first things you’ll notice are his collection of Garfield the cat posters and Saint Louis Rams football paraphernalia.

The classroom has an inviting atmosphere that helps to foster the education and learning process.

“Maybe I think like a 10-year-old, I don’t know. It works pretty well,” McWilliams said while laughing and shrugging his shoulders.

Local guy

McWilliams, who grew up in Osceola, said he was a “late starter” to teaching because he worked for Jimmy Dean for 12 years and was in the U.S. Air Force.

The armed services seems to run in McWilliams’ family because he was born in Germany while his dad was stationed there in the military.

At the age of 30, McWilliams went to get his teaching degree and graduated from Simpson College in Indianola.

McWilliams found a long-term substitute position at Clarke. He was hired to teach for the district soon after. He has taught fourth grade at Clarke for 20 years, and been in the same classroom for all of those years.

According to McWilliams, there aren’t a lot of men in the elementary education field, and there needs to be more.

“I think I just like working with kids, and at the elementary level, the majority really still like school, they like to please the teacher,” he said. “So, they’re just fun to work with. It’s fun to see the light go off when they learn new things.”

Being influenced

Math is the subject McWilliams likes teaching the most. One of his biggest influences growing up was Frank Riley, who taught math to McWilliams at Clarke Community High School.

“He always emphasized that there was more than one way to solve a math problem, and he would go above and beyond trying to help you if you did not see it one way, then you would look at it another way,” McWilliams said. “I just liked math because of that. It was fun in high school, and it can be real struggle for kids, and so, trying to find the way that works for them is kind of a challenge, but it’s fun.”

Patience and humor

For McWilliams, the secret to teaching children is to have patience and humor.

“I think just trying to understand where they’re coming from, and remembering that some things are easy for some and hard for others, and then vice versa,” he said. “I mean, everybody’s going to have their strengths and weaknesses, so just trying to be patient as you pull them through that weak area, trying to make it a strength for them.”

Starting a teaching career at an older age than in his early 20s, as well as having children of his own, has helped McWilliams in the elementary education field.

“I mean, face it, when you have kids of your own, you have to develop that patience, and I think the patience and thinking like a 10-year-old still works to my advantage. It helps,” he said.