The nomination of Mrs. Heather Jolly for Valley’s Top Teacher caught our eye, because of a sweet story shared by a mother. The mom who wrote to us said her daughter turned in paperwork to Mrs. Jolly, and the student left a note that said “I love you.” When the student got the paper back, Mrs. Jolly had left a note. It said “I love you more.”
Mrs. Heather Jolly and her third graders at Hatton Elementary School are kind of like a little family. She says being their teacher is her calling.
“Without a doubt God put me in this school for a reason,” smiles Heather Jolly, the Valley’s Top Teacher. “This is my home, this is where I feel like I make the biggest impact is here.”
Mrs. Jolly has been teaching for ten years at Hatton and says she loves seeing third graders learn and grow. Her kids say she really helps them a lot, and always with a smile.
“She is very nice and she tells us how it goes, and math is pretty easy when she is around, she tells us how it is supposed to work,” explains Jaxon Allen, a third grade student.
“She will help us and when we ask something she will answer us, and she is just really nice to us,” adds Gracelynn Wilson, a fellow third grader.
Although she puts a big focus on academics, Mrs. Jolly says her kids cannot learn until they know how much she cares for them.
“I live by: ‘You can’t teach the blooms until you teach the Maslows’ which means I cannot teach them anything academically until they are safe, until they are secure, and until they are loved,” shares Mrs. Jolly.
She views everyday as a new adventure and says she is a kid at heart. She builds relationships with each child and makes each day fun.
“Yesterday at our field trip she was dancing all kind of crazy,” laughs Gracelynn Wilson.
“She is very, very, very cool,” says Jaxon Allen.
Mrs. Jolly says in today’s world, not all of her kids get to hear that someone loves them. That’s why she makes sure all of her kids know she loves them and that she will continue to be there for them even after the third grade.
“I tell them every day, there is nothing you could do that would make me not want to be your teacher and not love you, there is nothing, nothing on the face of this Earth that you could possibly do,” shares Mrs. Jolly. “We are going to make bad decisions, we are going to learn from them, we are going to grow from them, but I am still going to love you and I am going to love you through it.”
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