USA TODAY Honors Millbrook High Teacher

October 14, 2004 - USA Today named Millbrook High teacher Lindy Poling one of the 20 teachers from across the nation on their All-USA Teacher First Team.

Millbrook High's Lindy Poling displays award she recieved from USA Today.

"We are proud that USA Today has honored Lindy Poling," said Superintendent Bill McNeal. "Lindy has devoted more than 20 years to teaching in our high schools. Along the way she has earned accolades, brought people of great honor into her classroom and earned respect for her teaching style, devotion to her students and her lessons on the Vietnam War."

Poling has been a history teacher at Millbrook High School since 1984. She has earned honors in Wake County and across the country for her Community-in-the-Classroom approach to studying history and her class, Lessons of Vietnam/Recent International Relations. The Community-in the Classroom approach helps students understand history by seeing it through the eyes of those who experienced it. In the Lessons of Vietnam class, Poling encourages students to talk to their family members about the war and brings in guest speakers from Raleigh and from across the U.S. Guests have included the late Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Vice Admiral and Mrs. Emmett Tidd, General George Price, former Raleigh City Councilman John Odom and local television news anchor Larry Stogner.

"I do not swamp my pupils with a myriad of facts and information about the Vietnam War," said Poling. "Instead, veteran Carl Bimbo tells them at point-blank range in our classroom that he lost his best buddy there. Later, Bimbo will accompany us on a trip to the wall, where he will hoist a student up on his shoulders to rub the name of his lost buddy. In this way, students come to appreciate that every one of the 58,299 names on this wall has individual significance."

Poling helps her students understand the war, the response to it back home and the emotion that is still attached to Vietnam. In addition to her visiting speakers, she pairs students with a link, one of a team of experts she has developed that correspond by e-mail and through personal interviews during the course. Students contribute to a quarterly newsletter entitled Bridges and the study culminates with a visit to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC.

Poling was nominated for the honor by Ruth Reece, a WCPSS teacher and student's parent. Each of the teachers will be presented trophies and checks for $2,500 for their schools. Forty more educators are named to the newspaper's Second and Third teams of top US teachers.

USA Today recognizes teachers for their vision, creativity and ability to inspire the best in their students. Winners are selected from hundreds of nominees by two panels of educators. USA Today states that teachers named to its First Team have the ability to transform students into lifelong learners. And in educating students, these teachers ultimately improve their communities.

USA Today reporter Tracy Wong Briggs visited with Poling in her classroom Sept. 29 to meet her students and class. Briggs heard news anchor Larry Stogner talk with students about his military service in Vietnam and his return for a television news special report. Briggs' news report Oct. 14 lists all the teachers being honored. She will write articles about the top 20 teachers, including Poling, during the next year.

You can find more information about Lindy Poling at http://mhs.wcpss.net/academics/poling/index.htm

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