Hilary Minich is an English teacher like her mother, and teaches at Lassiter High School with her husband Chris. What the reigning Lassiter teacher of the year couldn’t have imagined on Wednesday was being singled out for what she’s done in the classroom in such grand fashion.
During a back-to-school meeting with her fellow teachers, Minich got a surprise when Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale arrived to tell her that she was the district’s high school teacher of the year.
Minich, who has taught 11th and 12 graders at Lassiter for the last five years, figures her mother Hilda Wilkins—who taught at Walton High School—probably knew about the announcement. “But they kept my husband in the dark,” which, if school officials truly wanted to keep a secret, she figured, “is a good thing.”
Minich’s work at Lassiter, and for 11 years at Kell High School before that, has been obvious to those who’ve been observing her rapport and success with students, both in composition and literature courses.
“It doesn’t matter the level [of a students’ ability in English], she’s highly successful,” Lassiter principal Chris Richie said. “She constantly challenges and engages kids. She’s able to get out of them what they may not have thought what they had in them.”
Minich said student success begins “on the front end” before classes begin, and is strengthened as the school year goes along.
“It’s a matter of making personal connections with kids,” she said.
Building strong relationships with students from the outset—including understanding what subject matter interests them and how they learn the best—is vital.
That includes introducing them to good things to read, so they’ll be interested in writing.
“I consider myself a writing teacher first and foremost,” she said.
English isn’t every student’s favorite subject, but Minich said she likes to tell them when they enter her classroom that “I’m going to give you the gift of unplugging.”
By that she means disconnecting, from electronic gadgets that today’s students have grown up with. That’s one of the biggest differences in education Minich said she’s seen since she first started. Getting students who are eager to switch off their phones and open up a book to read the words of acclaimed novelists and writers is becoming a bigger challenge.
“I see kids who feel that they’re not allowed to disengage,” Minich said. “We teachers really have our work cut out for us.”
Minich’s academic activities at Lassiter also coordinating the school’s Advanced Placement Capstone program. It goes beyond the teaching of AP courses to include research, writing, public speaking and teamwork for college-bound students.
Minich teaches an AP class in literature and research, and her husband teaches an AP world history course.
“We’re trying to teach the value of academic research,” she said. “When reading comes easy, it empowers learning.”
Minich is one of three finalists for the Cobb overall teacher of the year, along with Cindy Wadsworth of Kemp Elementary School and Casey Taylor of Pine Mountain Middle School.
All three will drive a car free for a year donated by the Ed Voyles Automotive Group.
The winner will be announced in October.
