HJH students celebrate TCAP with Knowledge Bowl Week

Haywood Junior High celebrated TCAP Knowledge Bowl Week, April 13-17, highlighting the theme, Cruising To Success at TCAP Paradise. Students and faculty embarked on an imaginary cruise on the HJH Cruise Liner, touring various islands in the Caribbean and Hawaii. To promote team spirit at each morning and afternoon port of call, students were challenged with competitive TCAP-styled questions as they competed for a field day in May.

At lunchtime, fun-filled activities gained a captivated audience, starting with the HJH cheerleaders who kicked off the week with a TCAP cheer and a hula dance. Tuesday’s event, a Hawaiian limbo contest, brought down the house. Wednesday’s thought provoking SPI-based questions set in motion a drive to set a definitive lead between contending teams, the undaunted seventh graders and the unrelenting eighth graders. Friday ushered in a thrilling day of Jeopardy, which covered a wide array of questions that were pulled from all core subjects and were based on the 2009-2009 state standards. Aspiring musicians brought our celebration to a successful finish in a Guitar Hero contest. What talent!

The young ladies and gentlemen, accessorizing their pastel attire with leis, beads, hair flowers, and trendy earrings, further infused a touch of paradise into the atmosphere at HJH. The halls, doors, and cafeteria were decked with exotic flowers from islands such as Jamaica, Aruba, Cancun, Cozumel, St. Lucia, San Juan, Tobago, Bahamas, Barbados, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Cayman Islands. The cafeteria staff satisfied our taste buds with juicy, mouth-watering pineapples. Community representatives, custodians, food service staff administrators, and the entire teaching staff contributed significantly to the success of TCAP Knowledge Bowl Week at HJH.

“It is our desire that the success of this week will manifest itself in the results of our TCAP scores and in the fulfillment of our mission for days and years to come.”
 

HJH celebrates TCAP with a week in “Paradise”

During the week of April 13 at Haywood Junior High, librarian Fannie Beasley joined with other staff members and guest Tony Yanessa, who works as an engineer in customer service for TVA, to help students promote the school’s week of “TCAP Paradise.” Mr. Yanessa announced winners of TCAP activities and also read the morning question to the school.
 

HJH teacher Dr. Jerry Pyron honored as Top Teacher

Dr. Jerry Pyron

Haywood Junior High School teacher Dr. Jerry Pyron was recently selected and honored as the Channel 7 News Educator of the Week. He was surprised by the announcement when the station’s reporter, Brandon Artiles, showed up in his classroom with a cameraman in tow.

Artiles wrote about some of Dr. Pyron’s teaching techniques after the visit. “ Dr. Pyron’s Graham crackers, cake icing and a Fruit Roll-up. This wasn’t a menu for a bizarre brunch lesson at Haywood County Junior High School, but Dr. Jerry Pyron’s practical way of teaching plate tectonics to eighth graders,” he said.

According to Dr. Pyron, the crackers were continential crusts, the cake icing was magma, and the Fruit Roll-ups were the oceanic crust in the demonstration that Artiles was referring to in his description of Pyron’s teaching.

Artiles said that Pyron has been using this approach to teaching his entire career. “What I’m trying to do is connect with them on their level and make sure that everything is something they can relate to in their everyday lives,” Pyron said.

Jerry Pyron began teaching in Haywood County in August 1990. He started as a fifth-grade teacher at Sunny Hill, then moved to Haywood Junior High School in 2002 to teach seventh-grade math classes. For the past three years, he has taught eighth-grade science.

In addition to teaching at HJH, Dr. Pyron is also an adjunct professor at Bethel College, teaching education classes. “All these responsibilities revolve around Pyron’s love for teaching and his passion for students from the junior high level all the way to higher education,” Antiles wrote.

Antiles writes, “He acknowledges that teaching is a very demanding career, and aside from winning the Tennessee Education Lottery Educator of the Week award, he says it’s rewarding at another level.”

“This is what I’ve enjoyed for 20 years, and so it’s easy to come to work when you enjoy what you do,” Pyron said.

Pyron shared with ABC 7 one of those moments that has made a career in the classroom so rewarding. “One of the biggest things that I like is when I see the light come on,” Pyron reflected. “When I see that child who’s been having difficulty, having difficulty, when I see that child actually say, ‘ok, now I get it.’ I mean that makes it all worth while.”

Dr. Pyron is married to Alison Pyron, who is Haywood County Schools Food Service Director. They have two sons who are now in college.