SEQUIM — As the start of the academic year nears, Sequim Middle School teacher Tricia Billes isn’t sleeping well.
“Last night I woke up worrying,” she said, “about the struggling kids, and how am I going to help them be successful?
“I woke up in a sweat. . . . How do I do this?”
She does it very well, if the Washington History Teacher of the Year award is any indication.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York City selected Billes this summer, putting her in the running for the national prize to be awarded in the fall.
Billes, 52, will receive a $1,000 award from the institute while Sequim Middle School will gain a package of new history books and materials.
She said she’ll probably use the money to attend a Colorado conference on reading and teenagers in October.
But “I’m more stoked about the library books,” said Billes, using a surfer-ese adjective born of her Southern California roots.
Re-enactments, debates
The teacher, who uses re-enactments and debates instead of textbooks, grows more passionate by the minute when talking about her students.
In their minds, she should certainly be the top teacher in the country.
Billes’ seventh-grade U.S. history course was “the best class I’ve had,” said Isaac Boekelheide, who took her U.S. history course three years ago.
“For a lot of the kids who had a hard time learning the material, she really brought it to life for them.
“She’s just really different — in a good way,” added the 15-year-old. “You can tell she actually enjoys her work.”
Billes strives to teach her students about life — how to get along and how to love it.
She says she keeps three purposes in mind as she walks into her classroom: Help young people figure out what they believe in, and what their responsibilities are to the community, the country and the world.
Second: Teach students how to find information, and how to question it.
“Just because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s true,” for example.
Third, Billes shows her kids the world according to more than one view.
“History is told by the winners,” she says, but many other versions are accessible to the curious learner.