Molly Kettelhut spent her childhood dreaming of one thing.
“I wanted to teach for my whole life. I went through a short period where I wanted to do something else, but then I quickly realized – like I always had known – that I wanted to work with kids,” says Kettelhut, a seventh-grade teacher at Galapagos Charter School in Rockford.
She “had some really awesome teachers in school” and “some not-so-awesome teachers in school,” she adds, and “realized the impact that the teachers who were great made on me, and I was like, ‘Wow, I want to be that person.’ ”
That began with part-time jobs as a babysitter, a nanny and even as a coordinator of birthday parties for children. “It just felt like what I was meant to do,” she says.
Clearly.
Kettelhut, who earned her B.S.Ed. in Elementary Education from the NIU College of Education in 2016, is now a Rockford-area Golden Apple winner.
Now in its 27th year, the mission of the Golden Apple Foundation is to inspire, celebrate and support excellence in education in more than 150 schools, both public and non-public, spanning Winnebago and Boone counties.
“My students are so excited for me,” Kettelhut says, “and it’s so cool to see because my biggest thing is that I want to be the joy for my kids. I want them to feel happy coming to school. I want them to say, ‘I know that Miss Kettelhut’s class is a safe room for me and a fun room for me,’ and that ‘This is not a teacher who’s just here to do her job and leave. She truly wants to be here.’ ”
For Kettelhut, who teaches social studies and English Language Arts (ELA), the job is a welcome opportunity.
“Math is probably my favorite subject. I love math. But once I started teaching science, social studies and ELA, I was like, ‘I love this,’ ” says Kettelhut, who grew up in Downers Grove.
“I also feel like social studies was one of the hardest subjects for me because of the way teachers would teach it. Growing up, it was a lot of lecture,” she adds. “I make sure I’m teaching in a way that I wish I was taught as a kid. We talk through what we are learning. We use resources that help enhance our learning and connect it to the world today.”
Kettelhut appreciates her Golden Apple nomination, which is her second – the first came when she did not have enough years of experience to qualify – and came from a former student and the parent of a former student.
However, she initially wasn’t sure she would follow through with the subsequent writing required of nominees.
“It’s a lot of work. It’s a big process,” she says. “Then I though about it and I was like, ‘You know what? Those three people took the time to nominate me, and they believe in me. Why don’t I believe in myself?’ Even up until when it was due, I was still like, ‘Should I do it? Should I not?’ ”
Now, of course, she is happy she chose “yes.”
The students in her classroom are excited for her, she says, and she is excited for the convictions of her nominators and the confidence she’s realized.
“Although my fire has been lit for a long time as a teacher, I feel like this definitely has made me say, ‘You know what? I’m not giving myself enough credit. I need to believe in myself just like how my students believe in me and just how I try to believe in my students,’ ” Kettelhut says.
Meanwhile, she appreciates the challenge.
“Even the top of the top – the teachers that I look up to – I know that they always have room for growth. That something that’s important not just for me but for any teacher to recognize: ‘Hey, I know I’m good, but I need to continue pushing myself,’ ” she says. “I expect my scholars to always be growing, so I always want to be growing. That’s a huge one for me. I need to keep pushing myself.”
Joining Kettelhut in prestige among the 20 finalists were fellow NIU College of Education alumni David Bardwell (B.S.Ed. Special Education, 2012), Teresa Kruger (Ed.D. Curriculum and Instruction, 2012) and Ariana Sanders (M.S.Ed. Curriculum and Instruction, 2022).
Bardwell, who teaches biology at Rockford Jefferson High School, found his path later than most.
Originally from Gary, Indiana, he was living in Sycamore and driving a garbage truck when he was injured while working.
“I took my settlement from getting hurt on the job and I started going to Kishwaukee College,” says Bardwell, who was in his mid-30s at the time. “I started taking classes to see what I could do, and then I went and talked to the counselor. At the time, I was driving a school bus for DeKalb, and so I just thought education was the way to go.”
He was transporting students with special needs, which inspired him to pursue a B.S.Ed. in Special Education when he transferred to NIU. Driving the bus was his only link to education.
“I really didn’t know anything about teaching. I had nobody in my family who was a teacher,” he says. “I think NIU has got the best program, especially as far as Special Ed, with how every semester you do a rotation through a school. It really helped open my eyes to what education is and how education works. I just liked it more and more, and here I am.”
Bardwell taught special education at Jefferson for about 10 years after his 2012 arrival and, with a handful of science classes in his pocket and an endorsement in biology, made the shift to his current role.
He loves the gig – “I’ll be here until I retire if they don’t kick me out the door,” he says – and has a pretty good guess why Golden Apple believes he’s flourishing in the classroom.
“I connect with these kids. I connect with these kids more than a lot of people. You can go to the lunchroom downstairs, grab five kids and ask them who their favorite teacher is, and they’re all going to pick me – at least one or two, I promise you,” he says.
“I play around with them. I do a lot of socioemotional learning with them. I give them sarcastic ‘dad jokes’ and dumb ‘dad stuff’ that dads do with kids, and the kids eat it up,” he adds. “But as far as me being recognized, I think it’s a big deal for me and it’s a big deal for the school.”
KRUGER, FROM THE SMALL town of Elizabeth, Illinois, mostly has taught U.S. history at Belvidere North High School and is currently teaching a new course called Global Scholars.
“Our subject is so relevant to everything that’s happening in our world today, and that’s how we like to approach U.S. history,” says Kruger, who joined District 100 in 2001.
“Studying history for history’s sake is great if you’re a history buff and you like it. But for kids who don’t like history – and there are so many of them – it’s really trying to find the relevance and it’s so easy,” she adds.
“There’s so much relevancy in what they see in the media and on TV and the news. It just all relates so much to history, and to me, it’s also our drive for civics engagement. This is the discipline that can help prepare kids for that civic engagement – being informed voters and being active in their communities – and that’s exciting for me.”
Her path to the classroom began during her own high school days.
“I had a great high school experience myself, and I always envisioned myself as being kind of a positive role model to younger generations,” she says. “My parents were both blue-collar workers, so it was really the only occupation that that I was really exposed to.”
With her Ed.D., Kruger could move her teaching to college classrooms.
“But there’s just something about high school students. There is, believe it or not, still some of that eagerness to learn. They’re still looking for guidance. They’re still trying to find themselves and their identities,” she says. “That’s kind on an important piece. They need positive role models, and I try to give them some ‘student voice’ to help them find their voice and help them feel empowered. I just don’t think you get that at the college level as much as you can with high school kids, so I wouldn’t teach anything different.”
Her dissertation on “Teaching Controversial Issues in Secondary Education,” advised by Mary Beth Henning, examined “an approach to teaching social studies I’d never been exposed to.”
“I took a course with Mary Beth, she talked about this controversial approach, and man, I was drawn in, and we use it a lot in our classrooms,” Kruger says.
“We just finished a discussion on immigration. We looked at past immigration policies and the history of immigrants, how they’ve been treated and the contributions they’ve made to our country. Then we look at current legislation or current immigration policies,” she adds.
“The kids have to be able to see both perspectives, and then come up with their own conclusions. What would you change about the policy? Is it working for our country? Should we throw it out? Try a different policy? It’s those kinds of things that make this exciting.”
Golden Apple attention “is still kind of sinking in.”
“I put students first. I’m helping them find their voice, find where they’re comfortable and to advocate for themselves,” Kruger says, “and what makes my department great is that we’re all on board in really engaging the kids and helping them find the relevancy in what we do every day. It’s not just about social studies. It’s not just about history. It’s, ‘How can you be a better citizen for this country? How can you move our democracy forward?’ ”
SANDERS, WHO TEACHES SOCIAL studies at the nearby Belvidere High School, shares that goal for her 10th- through 12th-graders.
“My biggest motivation is the kids. I show up for these kids in so many different ways, and I just think that we all need someone, and I’m glad that I get to teach social science,” Sanders says.
“But I get to shape and mold them as little humans and get them prepared to go back out into the community and to be an active participant,” she says.
“Seeing that, and seeing them grow and make progress and be proud of themselves and encourage themselves and encourage other people, is what really makes this job enjoyable. It motivates me to come back every day,” she adds. “Knowing that I’m a constant for a lot of these kids – I know we see them more than they see their families sometimes – and creating that community in the classroom is a big motivator as well.”
The Rockford native first envisioned her future career as a 6-year-old at Lewis Lemon Elementary School in the classroom of teacher Carol Gibbs.
“She was just the most incredible teacher that I’ve ever had,” Sanders says. “She made sure that we got the content, but she also worried about our values but she also was worried our needs getting met, and I do that same thing for my kids if they need granola bars, water, coats – whatever. I really try to emulate that behavior. Kids gotta Maslow before they can Bloom.”
Earning an NIU master’s in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Curriculum and Cultural Pedagogies in Social Justice broadened her scope.
“When I was in high school, we kind of got the same narrative all the time about African Americans. They were enslaved. Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks. Great,” she says.
“But there’s so much more rich history out there, and I want to show my students that African American history, Mexican American history, LGBTQ history, immigrants and indigenous peoples are part of your history,” she adds, “not segmenting those groups to a seasonal time of year or a unit, but really showing that they are people who have been around since our origins. We have to be courageous and teach not only the hardships of these peoples but also the achievement in which they’ve contributed to U.S. history.”
Sanders also strives “to create positive relationships with students, seeing them for who they are and letting them be authentic.”
“If they’re a hot mess, you know they’re a hot mess – and that’s great because we can work together to use whatever assets they have to make them successful,” she says.
“I remind them that I’m not perfect either. I have a stutter, and I tell them each day that, ‘This is something I actively have to work on as an adult. I make mistakes. I don’t know how to type because I took three years of choir. All of those flaws show up here every day, and I’m not asking you to be perfect. I just want you to try.’ ”
Her finalist status “doesn’t feel real yet. It hasn’t set in yet.”
“I don’t think that anything I do is ‘outstanding.’ It’s just me being me, showing up as I am and being authentic and who I am as a person – as Ariana,” she says, “and people saying that I’m exceptional means a lot to me because there was a time where I felt like I couldn’t do that, being a Black face in a predominantly white space. This nomination kind of solidifies that it’s OK to be me because it’s enough.”
