Teacher earns top award

      It's the beginning of class and there's Michele Miller - huddled with fifth-grade boys talking football.
      Football?
      "I love football. Every Monday morning I spend 15 minutes with the boys talking about football," she said. "Sometimes I take a hit for being an (Philadelphia) Eagles fan."
      The 28-year-old Glassboro, N.J. native is as likely to reel off highlights of a football game with her pupils as she is to use wacky poet Shell Silverstein to teach a lesson.
      Unconventional, maybe, but Miller knows she must veer a bit from the teaching norm to connect with her special education pupils.
      Connect she has. She's Sallie Mae's 1998 Nevada First Class Teacher of the Year. The American Association of School Administrators, on behalf of the Reston, Va.-based financial services company, selects first-year teachers based on their instructional skills and interaction with students, faculty, staff, parents and community.
      Honored to be selected by Stanford Elementary principal Celia Isabell, she was shocked to become a finalist, and then win. More than 1,300 new teachers filled Nevada schools last year.
      Miller and Stanford Elementary principal Celia Isabel combined for 11 essays on the nomination.
      "When I got the letter in the mail, I thought (Sallie Mae) was trying to sell me a loan," she said. "Then I found out I won. I was thrilled."
      Miller will receive $1,500, a personalized memento and an all-expense paid trip to Washington D.C. to meet with other winners.
      Since Miller can remember, she rooted for the underdog and special education pupils are underdogs in life, she said.
      "All kids are at-risk," she said. "But special education pupils need more support, more attention and more people believing they can be successful. When they have that they can do more than they think."
      Though fun-loving, Miller preached structure.
      There was little down time in the resource room - a third of a classroom designed for special education pupils. Everything followed a plan. Each week, homework schedules were handed out.
      "That way, the kids felt like they knew what was coming and could prepare better," she said.
      Fun projects - math baseball, spelling games and activities like upside-down day where all the work was done upside-down - made learning interesting.
      Toward the end of the year, she began reading "House on Mango Street," by Sandra Cisneros, a Chicago born poet and author who grew up in poverty. The book is a collection of semi-autobiographical prose-poems recalling her childhood.
      "The first time I read the book, I asked the children to write something and they didn't understand (what to write about)," she said. "But the more I read and the more they saw themselves in the characters, the more they would write and get excited about writing. Some even gained enough confidence to read (aloud)."
      Miller also worked on improving self-esteem and imparting life skills.
      "I talked about reacting in certain situations, confidence and helpfulness," she said. "Then I would comment on when they used the life skills. This worked wonders."
      Connecting to some children was easier than others. Some came saddled with self-defeating attitudes because of their handicaps, difficult home lives or both.
      "My biggest concern at 10 was a flat tire on my bike," Miller said. "Some of these children worried about whether or not they would have food on the table each day. Many already had two strikes against them so I had to open myself up to them."
      Miller remembers one rebellious boy who always tore through his assignments with a pencil. She taught him fractions by using his classmates as numbers.
      Miller openly talks about her life. She tells pupils about Brien Connors, a friend she lost to cancer on June 26. On Mondays, she goes to Sunrise Children's Hospital and reads to patients in the pediatric oncology unit.
      "I want them to know that teachers are human and that it's important to care about people," she said. "I also talked about things that were important to them."
      Miller wanted to help special education pupils year-round so she took a transfer to Lynch Elementary where she worked as a substitute during the summer.
      Minutes into an interview to decide her future with the school, Lynch Principal Andrew Martinez was sold.
      "She was very knowledgeable about special education and special education law and very proactive in the classroom," he said. "She will be a welcome addition to our family."