Finding the right path
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:40 AM PST
Jennifer Colton
Argus Observer
Vale
Tuesday afternoon, a high-pitched whirling noise radiated from a classroom at Vale Elementary School.
Students were busy creating “insects” from a printed image, Styrofoam, string and tongue depressors — then twirling the bugs quickly through the air to create the sound.
“It’s an insect project learning about insects and the sound of wings,” fifth-grade teacher Steve McFetridge, said. “These insects will probably fit under the pest category.”
Whirling insects are only one of the creative, interactive projects McFetridge brings into his classroom.
Since 1990, McFetridge and the other two fifth-grade teachers supported the annual “Oregon Trail Hike.” The event encourages students to bring wagons from home or refurbish school wagons for a five-mile hike on “The V” to reenact the Oregon Trail.
Other favorite projects include a volcano fair and a non-motorized model car race — both projects where parent/family interaction is encouraged.
“It unites the family with the school,” McFetridge said. “It’s something that the students created at home with their families and they get a lot of positive praise for.”
The fifth-grade classes also reenact the Revolutionary War — this year McFetridge’s class played the English while the other two classes acted as colonists.
“The beauty of it (teaching) is every year you have a different class with different personalities,” McFetridge said. “If you’re bored with something, you try it at a different angle. My opinion is if a teacher’s bored, it’s because they let themselves get bored.”
Many of his ideas came from Glenn Shelton and David Hyde — two teachers he taught with who served as mentors for him, McFetridge said, and the classroom interaction has continued with other teachers.
“We try to make the fifth-grade a whole unit,” he said. “It seems to work because the kids are excited about coming into fifth-grade and all the projects we do.”
For 22 years McFetridge has taught fifth-grade at Vale Elementary School, after student teaching at Greenwood Elementary in La Grande — also in fifth grade.
“I like this age level of kids,” he said. “They’re enthusiastic, you can do a lot with them — and they’re housebroken.”
Born and raised on a cattle ranch in Enterprise, Ore., McFetridge said he knew he was not destined for ranch life.
“I’m the oldest of six (kids), so a lot of responsibility was thrust upon me,” he said.
McFetridge earned a bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate at Eastern Oregon University before student teaching and preparing to move to Madras, Ore. Then he interviewed with a former principal at Vale Elementary from Wallowa, Ore.
“He knew several people that I knew, so we got to talking,” McFetridge said. “I thought I didn’t have the job because we never got around to talking about work. Then he called me that July and asked if I wanted the job.” Teaching for more than two decades, the greatest changes have been in technology, McFetridge said.
“In some ways it’s a good thing, and in other ways it’s taken away from their imaginations,” he said. “I’ve got several kids who have never seen the ocean, and through technology, they can experience that.
“When I came here, we had two computers, no telephones, ditto paper. Now we’re doing Xeroxing, digital cameras, the whole gambit. Now you’ve got phones in every room.”
McFetridge also serves on the Agriculture Advisory Council, working with the high school Future Farmers of America.
“It’s been a lot of fun working with those kids at an older level,” he said. “I’ll go up to the high school and get bombarded by students. There aren’t many schools where the high school students will acknowledge a former teacher.”
The students and the community in Vale keep him in the school district, McFetridge said, and the longer he lives in Vale, the more accepted he feels.
“I’ve never had a child I regretted having,” he said. “If you can produce a memory that will stick with a kid the rest of their life, that’s the whole goal of teaching.”
