UPDATE: Jim McFall has made it into the Top 10 for the Indiana State Teacher of the Year award for 2020. He will proceed on to the interview portion of the competition. The winner is expected to be announced next month or early in October.
School has been in session for less than two weeks, and students in Jim McFall’s medical interventions class are already learning how to write DNA sequences.
That was the assignment for the Aug. 14 Project Lead the Way class at Brown County High School. In the same classroom sits a group of students who are taking biomedical innovations.
Teaching two courses at the same time is not an easy job, but for McFall, it exemplifies what has led to him being named to the top 30 teachers in the running for Indiana Teacher of the Year.
The top 10 are expected to be announced this week. Those teachers will move on to an interview process that will help determine the winner.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]To McFall’s students and the principal who hired him 17 years ago, McFall is already the winner.
“He is the example of what I think many people aspire to be,” Principal Matt Stark said.
Leading the way
McFall has been teaching in Brown County his entire career.
He came here from Tell City after earning his bachelor’s degree at Indiana University. He later received his master’s degree in education from Indiana Wesleyan.
The small-community feel, which allows for more personal connections, is one of the reasons McFall came here.
“I didn’t ever want to teach in a large corporation,” he said.
“I like that when I went to high school, all of my teachers knew my name even if I didn’t have them in class. That’s probably my favorite thing about teaching here and having children in the corporation is that I know that people actually know me. They know my kids’ names.”
He moved to Brown County in 2009 after marrying Kara, a Brown County alumna. The couple has three children.
He started out teaching eighth-grade science at Brown County Junior High School. Stark was responsible for hiring two science teachers at the high school and the junior high due to a principal transition.
“I had gotten a job offer from Salem that same week. I was like, ‘What do I do?’ He (Stark) goes, ‘Don’t take that job. Take this one,’” McFall said.
Four years ago, McFall began teaching Project Lead the Way courses, resulting in him moving to the high school full time. He didn’t know it at the time, but he was ready for something different after teaching at the same grade level for years.
His wife is a nurse, and McFall had always had an interest in biology. He taught a few biology classes as more Project Lead the Way courses were built up each year.
Now, he has a full schedule of Project Lead the Way classes. Another teacher now teaches a section of the first-year class due to a growing program. “His students feel comfortable around him. They clamor to take his classes,” Stark said.
Project Lead the Way courses are different from traditional classes. They focus on activities, solving problems and projects. There’s very little lecturing and the students drive the curriculum, McFall said.
“It’s mostly them working, me presenting a problem then going around and coaching them. … They ask me questions and I come back to them with another question. It’s frustrating at first for some of them, but they understand that’s the process, and they own their learning more through the style,” he said.
There are Project Lead the Way courses in computer science and engineering now, too.
The courses also allow students to explore possible career pathways.
“I’ve had someone say, ‘I really wanted to be a nurse, but now I want to go into research because that seems more interesting. I had no idea it was out there,’” he said.
‘Epitome of a good teacher’
McFall is the reason several students are going into medical or biomedical fields.
Senior Olivia Baughman is considering becoming a forensic psychologist. Senior Jacob Rodgers wants to work in DNA analysis. The two have had McFall as a science teacher each year since eighth grade.
Rodgers describes McFall as understanding and an outstanding teacher.
“If you need help with something, he is there to help you. For me, I don’t have internet at my house. I’ll let him know and be like, ‘Hey, it might take me a little bit longer on a project,’ and he’s fine with that,” Rodgers said.
He said McFall is “more than willing” to stay in the classroom during lunch to let him finish his quizzes or tests. “For me, it means a lot for a teacher to do that, because I know that a lot of teachers, they wouldn’t go that far into it, but he’s really helpful,” Rodgers said.
During Baughman’s freshman year, McFall let her stay in his classroom after school to complete her science fair project. “He didn’t care what time it was; he just wanted to help me finish it. It meant a lot … knowing that a teacher will take time out of their day and their personal life to help me with school,” she said.
“(He is) like a life coach,” Baughman added.
“He just helps us a lot with anything that we’re really struggling with,” Rodgers added.
Baughman said McFall’s enthusiasm for science makes class fun. “You just get excited and actually want to learn about something instead of wanting to fall asleep in class. It’s awesome,” she said.
Senior Allison Stogsdill said that McFall’s passion for science makes his class feel more like home. “He makes me want to be in the classroom. He enjoys teaching and creates a positive environment for his students,” she said.
Stogsdill, Emma Summers and Abigail Hollander have also had McFall as a science teacher since eighth grade. The three seniors are in McFall’s biomedical innovations class, the class that happens at the same time as medical interventions.
“He really wants to get to know you as a student and as a person. If you ever have any life questions, you can go to him and he’s helpful,” Hollander said.
Summers wrote the student letter in support of McFall’s Teacher of the Year nomination. “He has your back no matter what,” Summers said.
“He’s been there for me personally for every step of the way, through my college decisions, to deciding what classes I’m going to take. He’s like a father figure away from home.”
“He’s like our school dad,” Stogsdill added.
“I think he deserves it (Teacher of the Year) because he’s an epitome of a good teacher. He’s a good person to have (by your side) while you’re going through high school.”
“I don’t think there’s a person in this state who cares as much about his students or his classes as Mr. McFall does,” Summers added.
Senior Myka Snyder has had McFall as a teacher every year except for her sophomore year. “He cares so much about his students. I feel comfortable talking to him about anything. You can go to him with confidence that he’ll give you the best advice, whether it’s about college or personal situations. He’s always there,” she said.
Last year, Snyder took the second-year biomedical science class with McFall after she couldn’t take a dual-credit human anatomy course through Ivy Tech. “It ended up being my favorite class, and now I have the desire to go to college in the medical field because of Mr. McFall,” she said.
‘Complete package’
McFall has always had a knack for wanting to help people.
“When I was in class (as a student) and I knew how to do something that someone else next to me didn’t, I was naturally drawn to wanting to help them understand it. I had teachers who did the same for me,” he said.
McFall also loves sports. He and his family are Cubs fans. He and his wife coach for Brown County Parks and Recreation. Being a coach was another draw for him to become a teacher. He is not currently coaching for the schools so that his afternoons are free to pick his children up from school.
Being a teacher allows McFall the time to be a husband and father, which is the one of the reasons he remains in the profession.
He said he is “blown away” by making it to the top 30 teachers out of the initial 61 nominated from across the state.
Each school in Brown County nominated and selected a teacher of the year for their building. Then, from those, the district’s teacher of the year is selected, and the nomination is sent to the department of education for a chance at the state’s title.
Superintendent Laura Hammack was one of the top 25 semifinalists for Teacher of the Year when she was a sixth-grade teacher at Nashville Elementary in 2002. Computer science teacher Tom Baker was a semifinalist in 2005, according to Democrat newspaper archives.
McFall said his favorite part about teaching is when the lives of his students are positively impacted by the work he does. ”Sometimes they need someone to believe in them and tell them they can do something, and they’ll do it. That’s what I love doing,” he said.
“I have students who are now going to college, pursuing these careers and they are going to be awesome. It’s really cool to be a part of that.”
On the flip side, McFall said seeing his students not working to their potential is his least favorite part about teaching. “When you see things you can’t do anything about, where they don’t have the support they need, or it’s just out of your hands and you can only do so much for them and they’re still making bad choices, that’s tough,” he said.
He encourages new teachers to be overprepared and to truly have a passion to help people. “If you’re overprepared, you know what you’re going to do in the classroom on that day and you have all of that figured out, then you have the time to focus on, ‘This kid is not looking to make eye contact with me today; what’s wrong with him?’ That’s why we’re here,” he said.
“The kids remember us because we cared about them.”
Stark has taught with and supervised hundreds of staff in his years as an educator. He calls McFall the “complete package.” That’s coming from a man who won two teaching awards himself, was District Nine Principal of the Year twice and was a nominee for Indiana Principal of the Year.
“Jim is easily in that echelon because of what he does, how he does and the way he comes prepared,” Stark said.
“We are a richer school because we have him.”
