Mrs. Martha Owens
Apple 4 the Teacher 1999

"I have always wanted to be a teacher.  I feel it is the most rewarding profession available.  Can you imagine being privileged enough to have the opportunity to share a year of a child's life with them?" asks Martha Owens a third grade teacher at Carthage Elementary School in Smith County, Tennessee.  In 23 years of teaching, she has had that privilege with over 600 children.  Martha is originally from Oak Ridge, but has lived in Smith County since marrying twenty-four years ago.  She is also the mother of two sons, Sean a senior at TTU and J. B., a senior at Smith County High School.

Martha feels it's important that the classroom provide a comfortable but stimulating atmosphere for students.  "Our classroom is packed full of the materials we use throughout the year.  My entire curriculum is based on quality children's literature."  The students read and work with over eighty children's book sets or novel sets in the third grade using her own teacher created materials.  Not only do they learn Science, Social Studies, and all other subject areas from these books, but they are able to see the "real life" applications of these skills.

Martha has received a Goals 2000 grant of over $4,700.00 to begin a take home reading program called "Books in a Bag" for the 1999-2000 school year. It is a program that involves the parents with their child on building reading skills.

In addition to her work at Carthage Elementary, Martha has written and illustrated several books for use in her classroom as well as other classrooms in the Middle Tennessee area.  She feels it is important to teach children about the history of their state.  One of the student interactive books she has written, A Tennessee Journey, is used in her home county in the third grade classrooms, as well as fourteen other counties in Tennessee.  Her Tennessee book, as we as her collection of Appalachian tales is to be published next year.  Each year,  Martha goes into other classrooms to share her Appalachia tales with children.  She has been a guest speaker across Middle Tennessee to teachers and future teachers to discuss writing and her teaching approaches.

Martha sums up her philosophy of teaching, "If I can have my students take one thing with them when they leave my classroom, it would be the love for a book they could carry within them throughout their lives."