“I lived [in Austin] for a summer, and a bunch of things happened all at once,” Hostetter said. “Harlem got signed to a record label. And right as soon as that happened I decided that the rock-and-roll lifestyle was not for me…. We went all over the United States playing shows, and I said, ‘This is not the kind of lifestyle that I can live.’”

So Hostetter returned to his hometown and approached , chair of the undergraduate teacher program at 91����Ƶ, about gaining a degree in education.

“When he first explored the option of pursuing the program, he didn’t have either English or education as his major. So he was kind of starting over, after already having the undergrad degree,” Smeltzer Erb said.

“And what so inspired me from the very beginning, which I think speaks highly of his character,” she continued, “was the way in which he interacted with peers who were several years younger, in age, and several years younger in development as teachers. He just navigated that classroom with such integrity, such interest, such grace.”

This spring, Hostetter was honored as one of five . His peers selected him to represent Shelburne Middle School, where he is a 6th-grade language arts teacher.

“I’ve been playing music since middle school,” said Hostetter, whose mother, Louise ’79, was recently in 2017-18. “When I graduated high school, I think I knew in the back of my mind that I would be a teacher eventually, but Berklee was kind of my way to prevent that from happening right away, because music was my first love.”

Raised in a Mennonite family and educated at , Hostetter developed early on a sense of social responsibility that influenced his decision to become a teacher.

“I think that probably a lot of my calling has to do with my Anabaptist heritage, the whole idea of serving the community, serving others,” Hostetter said.

“I want [my students] to develop a love for reading and a love for learning and discovery,” said Hostetter, who occasionally uses his vintage ‘73 Epiphone electric guitar to incorporate music into a lesson. “When I meet a student at the beginning of the year who doesn’t necessarily like reading, or isn’t very excited about language arts, if I can foster some kind of change in that disposition, I think that’s incredibly rewarding – because the habits that they make in 6th grade are usually the ones that they take with them for the rest of their academic careers.”

Last summer, Hostetter married Staunton 4th grade teacher, Nicole Barbano Hostetter. who was also one of the five teachers recognized as Teacher of the Year for Staunton City Schools. She was chosen from the faculty of Bessie Weller Elementary School.

The two met at a Staunton bakery three years ago, shortly before teacher orientation began.

“We were both first-year teachers and it was definitely luck that we were in the same place at the same time,” Nicole said. “We were both coming from different experiences, and I think that making the transition to teaching together was such a good experience for us to have. We really supported each other that first year and we continue to do that now.”

Smeltzer Erb attributes John Hostetter’s success in the classroom to his deep passion for learning to teach over time, and his respect for middle-schoolers and colleagues alike.

“For many students, the classroom is perhaps the only safe place in their day,” Smeltzer Erb said. “It’s the place where somebody like John can truly care about them as individuals.”

As one of just two 6th grade English teachers in Staunton, Hostetter’s job connects him to the community.

“Shelburne is wonderful because I get to know half the children who are in Staunton City schools,” Hostetter said. “When my wife and I are walking through the park, I mean, everybody knows us …. And because you’re teaching, and you’re spending seven hours a day with these kids, you get to know the parents pretty well, and I think it does provide a service. I think that public education is an extension of the community.”

Hostetter hasn’t abandoned music. He has “too many” guitars, a home recording studio and plays guitar in a local band named “Elephant Child.”

“I’ve got my guitar in the classroom, and they think that’s the coolest thing in the world,” he said. “And I try to goof around on occasion, and sometimes I’ll play my guitar, and they love that. But it’s not every day that I get to actually sit and sing to them.

“I’m going to dress up like Johnny Cash here in the next couple weeks, for a history lesson.”

A third individual selected as Staunton Teacher of the Year, Dixon Educational Center art teacher Gina Gaines, is also an 91����Ƶ alum, having taken classes in the late 1970s.

The aspiration, "to see myself as others see me," has, to some extent, come to fruition for Scott Jost of Bridgewater, Va.

Jost, an associate professor of art at Bridgewater College, began a project in 2006 he calls "Teaching Through the Lens." This "work in progress" will be displayed in a photography exhibit currently on display through Feb. 6 in the public art gallery at 91����Ƶ.

Jost has photographed himself and others in the college classroom while teaching and during formal and informal interactions involving students and colleagues. Other images include the Bridgewater College campus, his home life and interactions with family. He began the project on the anniversary of his tenth year of full-time teaching.

Jost captured the photographs in his exhibit with a Fuji FinePix F10 and F30, and Richoh GX100 and GX200, compact cameras he carries on his belt.

He took an informal approach to composition reminiscent of a genre known as street photography, with many images recorded "blind" without looking directly into the camera display.

"This venture will continue over time in order to experience constancy and change in myself and my family, in students and colleagues and, perhaps in the nature of academic life itself," Jost said. "I intend to use this project in creating a better, richer life for myself and in becoming a better teacher, colleague and family member. I believe ‘Teaching through the Lens’ will also be of interest to others wishing to reflect on teaching, learning and academic life."

Jost earned a BA degree from Bethel College, N. Newton, Kan., and an MFA degree from the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis. Before going to Bridgewater College he taught in the art department at 91����Ƶ, 1996-2003.

The exhibit, in the third floor art gallery of 91����Ƶ’s Hartzler Library, is open for viewing daily free of charge during regular library hours, and admission is free.

Jolene Kratz, who has completed her first year of teaching in the Rockingham County Public School System, has been selected to attend the 2009 Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy, a five-day professional development program for third- through fifth-grade educators.

Ms. Kratz is a fifth grade teacher at Cub Run Elementary School in Penn Laird. She is a 2008 elementary education graduate of 91����Ƶ.

“This award is definitely a huge honor, especially since I am just a first year teacher, and I believe that my 91����Ƶ education aided me in being chosen,” said Kratz.

Professional golfer Phil Mickelson and his wife Amy, partnered with ExxonMobil to create the academy to give teachers the opportunity to enhance their mathematics and science teaching skills and to discover new ways to motivate their students in these areas.

Invitations to attend the Academy are extended to selected school districts, which then nominate between five to 10 educators to represent their district. In addition, teachers can also be nominated for one of 100 open seats.

In late July Kratz will travel to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., to participate in the all-expenses-paid professional program. She will join 600 third- through fifth-grade teachers from school districts across the country.

Lori H. Leaman, associate professor of education at 91����Ƶ and a former professor of Kratz’s, remembers having her in class.

“I was delighted to watch Jolene teach during her elementary science methods course at 91����Ƶ,” Dr. Leaman said. “Her insights and questions indicated that she was committed to doing what is needed to ensure that students develop a passion for learning, not just ‘go through the motions.’

“The Mickelson ExxonMobil Teaching Award is an honor that we believe is symbolic of what we are all about in teacher education here at 91����Ƶ,” Leaman added.

“91����Ƶ gave me the confidence I needed to deal with the struggles of the first years of teaching, and I definitely felt prepared to be on my own,” Kratz stated.

Kratz was a center on the 91����Ƶ Lady Royals basketball team all four years. She is from Telford, Pa., and a 2004 graduate of Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, Lansdale, Pa.

Julia White, founder and artistic director of the 17-year-old Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir, led 69 choristers, ages 7-13, through demonstrations and songs at The Homestead, site of the Virginia Music Educators Association annual meeting.

Joy Anderson, SVCC assistant director, leads the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir in a solfege demonstration at the Virginia Music Educators Association gathering. Photo by Jill Koeppen

A pear helps children visualize how to open up the backs of their mouths and throats to produce a full, rich sound. The slit tennis ball reminds choristers to open their mouths wide. "Hee-haw" is definitely NOT how you want to behave coming off and on to the risers.

The children enthusiastically demonstrated right and wrong ways to sing and handle themselves on stage, prompted by White and Joy Anderson, assistant director of the choirs. The songs the choristers shared demonstrated how appealing excellent-quality repertoire can be to both children and audiences.

The session included a solfege demonstration in which Anderson led the children in major and minor scales, memorized intervals, sight reading and even finding a specific pitch on their own. Curwen hand signs added a kinesthetic element to the aural skills demonstration.

"Very few music educators have had adequate formal training in conducting children’s choirs," White said, explaining her motivation for taking two charter buses of children across the mountains on a wintry day. "I am thrilled with the opportunity to share with these educators what kind of sound and performance they can expect from the children they teach."

Despite a less than ideal venue – challenging acoustics and a standing-room-only crowd – the Prep and Treble choirs demonstrated that they have learned their SVCC lessons well.

SVCC staff set extremely high musical and behavior standards for the choristers, and the mature professionalism exhibited by even the youngest choristers made them able ambassadors for their community.

Read more about SVCC and hear recordings at www.emu.edu/svcc.

Four 91����Ƶ seniors preparing to become teachers have been recognized for exemplifying the necessary traits for an exemplary career in public education.

Named “Teachers of Promise” by the state of Virginia were:

• Katrina J. Martin, Peachtree City, Ga., an elementary education major with PreK-6th grade licensure. She is seeking a teaching position this fall with either Harrisonburg City or Rockingham County school systems.
• Rachel A. Sims, Perkasie, Pa., a mathematics major seeking licensure in grades 6-12 with TESL minor;
• Kendal L. Swartzendruber, Keezletown, Va., a special education major with certification in mental retardation and emotionally disturbed.
• Shannon D. Yoder, Harrisonburg, Va., a history and social science major seeking licensure in grades 6-12.

The students were honored during a two-day institute held mid-March at James Madison University in Harrisonburg.

‘Touching Children’s Lives’

“The ‘Teachers of Promise’ seminar was a meaningful event that encouraged me as I prepare to enter the profession,” said Martin. “The seminar also was a good reminder that the teaching career is about much more than simply teaching academics – it is about touching children’s lives.”

The Teachers of Promise Institute is sponsored by the Virginia Department of Education, the Virginia Milken Educator Network and the James Madison Center. This institute offers a quality professional development opportunity for pre-service teachers from all of the commonwealth’s 37 accrediting institutions.

Participants are selected by their university on a competitive basis and represent the commonwealth’s most promising and gifted pre-service educators.

In an effort to support its strongest teacher candidates, the state provides guidance for the new Teachers of Promise by providing them with mentors who are veteran teachers who have been recognized as “Teachers of the Year” in Virginia.

Teaching: ‘a true profession’

Lori H. Leaman, assistant professor of , attended the institute with the four students.

“The institute felt like an affirmation of 91����Ƶ

A member of the teacher department faculty will receive a national award that will help her continue a research project on the emotional dynamics of beginning teachers.

Cathy Smeltzer Erb, an associate professor of teacher education, will receive the 2004 "Scholar Award" from The Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education (AILACTE) at the organization’s annual meeting Feb. 20 in Washington, D.C. 91����Ƶ is one of more than 200 member institutions.

The award is given annually to a faculty member at an AILACTE institution in his or her first five years of appointment as a full-time faculty member to conduct research related to the impact of teacher preparation at AILACTE- member schools.

Dr. Smeltzer Erb’s research is examining the relationship between the highly emotional context of beginning (student) teachers at AILACTE institutions and the moral and ethical decisions of beginning teachers as they learn to teach.

Cathy Smeltzer Erb, associate professor of teacher education receives the AILACTE award.

"I’m pleased to be honored in this way," Smeltzer Erb said of the award. "My current research ties in well with my doctoral work, ‘Realms of Beginning Teachers’ Emotional Experiences,’ which suggested that emotional knowledge is an important dimension of teacher development in the early years of teaching.

"The implications of this study relate well to AILACTE’s mission, ‘to focus teacher education on the moral dimensions of schooling and education’ and to the purpose of promoting quality teacher education," she added.

Smeltzer Erb received a Ph.D. degree in curriculum, teaching and learning from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Prior to joining the 91����Ƶ faculty in 2002, she was a family studies teacher and guidance counselor for more than 15 years in private and public middle and secondary schools in Ontario, Canada.

As her husband dressed for work the morning of Aug. 7, 1998, Doreen Ruto suggested he change shirts. She found one that matched his suit better.

Several days later, that shirt helped her locate his body on the floor of the city morgue in Nairobi, Kenya.

“Beyond the Rubble” was the title that Ruto – a diminutive, lively woman in a lavender dress and head-scarf – gave to the account of grief and healing that she shared at a recent Summer Peacebuilding Institute luncheon. Ruto is a beginning student at 91����Ƶ’s Conflict Transformation Program, which has brought 170 people from all continents together for the annual institute, May 3-June 15.

Many have powerful stories to tell, SPI co-director Pat Hostetter Martin noted.

Ruto, a former secondary school teacher, and her husband, Wilson Mutai — both from rural Nandi families – had moved to Nairobi for careers with the Teachers Service Commission, where she still works in teacher training and management. She was on leave that August morning, at home with the couples two then-young sons and recovering from a miscarriage two weeks earlier.

She heard “a shattering noise” and suspected a transformer had blown. Moments later, her nine-year-old saw the first TV report of the bombing five miles away that targeted the U.S. Embassy and destroyed all but the shell of the commission high-rise where Mutai had worked on the fourth floor. “I panicked,” Ruto says. Her husband was among 224 killed.

Her year-old baby kept asking for his dad: “One of my greatest discomforts was how do I explain to him where this person is?” After she returned to work, Ruto and surviving colleagues had to go through bloodstained files littered with glass shards. She found her husband’s imprint on a blasted door.

“I asked myself what is it that I had not done. Was it a curse? What did God expect of me?” says Ruto, a Pentecostalist. She read the entire Bible in six months. Additionally, “I wrote a long letter to Wilson because I needed to talk to someone about my pain.” Having finished the 15-page letter, she observed a mourning tradition: “I packed his clothes, put them in a suitcase and apologized to him for evicting him from his house.”

As permitted by Nandi custom. Mutai’s family of origin insisted on pocketing his entire inheritance, causing a painful estrangement common among Kenyan widows.

She found healing in assisting fellow-mourners, becoming vice-chair of a survivors’ group. She learned of 91����Ƶ’s conflict resolution programs during a conference with bombing survivors in Oklahoma City. In 2002, she participated in 91����Ƶ’s STAR program for trauma healing. She hopes to obtain her masters in conflict transformation degree in 2006 and use the skills gained to help other survivors of terrorism.

“Terrorism takes all forms,” she says. “For me, poverty and starvation are other forms of terrorism.”

When U.S. customs officials asked Ruto the purpose of her visit, she replied, “to study peacebuilding.” An official inquired, “Peacebuilding between whom?” Ruto recalls, “I wanted to say ‘between you and me.'”

She says many Kenyans fear U.S. “anti-terrorist” policies will hurt their country. “We now have ‘are you with us or against us?’ This continues to drift us apart.”

Aaron Wright, attending SPI from Liberia, said Ruto works so hard helping other terrorism survivors that she often lacks time to rest. “I’m going back with her story,” said a man from Nepal, where widows are also struggling.

Watching news of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Ruto unconsciously searched the crowds for friends’ faces. That year in New York, she gave a victim-impact statement at proceedings where four men received life sentences for the Nairobi bombing. Her testimony was not legally relevant, however, because the men were only tried for the 12 American deaths – not those of more than 200 Africans. Ruto notes the average compensation for Nairobi bombing widows was $10,000, compared to a $1.6-million average for World Trade Center families.

Most Kenyans did not want the Nairobi terrorists executed, however. Recalling that Oklahoma City murderer Timothy McVeigh went to his death expressing no remorse, Ruto says a life sentence allows more time for regret.

Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer from Harrisonburg.