Mary Hill: Bayyari Elementary

The students at Springdale’s Bayyari Elementary know their polygons by heart, even some of the exotic ones we may forget as adults. With masking tape they trace parallelograms, trapezoids and triangles on their desks as Mary Hill, an honors elementary education major, leads them through the day’s lesson. Even though this is her first year in the classroom, she keeps their rapt attention.

This fifth-grade classroom was Hill’s third placement at Bayyari since she arrived as an intern last fall. When she walked the halls children of all ages, from the little tykes to towering near-middle schoolers, waved to her, and she stopped frequently for a hug and updates on how their day was going.

Hill’s jump from kindergarten to fourth to fifth grade can be intimidating according to Amy Johnson, Bayyari teacher and one of Hill’s mentors. “Joining my fourth-grade class after kindergarten, where students needed help tying their shoes, she was kind of wide-eyed the first few days learning how independent these students were. She began to think in a bigger picture, more whole-world, about how to make these kids better humans, and it was amazing to watch.”

Growing up in Bentonville with mostly Caucasian classmates, Hill says there was some culture shock when she first entered Bayyari, where two-thirds of the students are Latino and nearly all students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Now she says she hopes to stay in a school like this: “I feel like my calling is here, in these kinds of demographics.”

As part of her internship Hill designed and implemented a ten-day curriculum on Ellis Island dedicated to the timely issues of immigration and empathy. She wanted to combine history, geography, literature and art to give immigrant students a chance to tell their own stories. “They related to it completely,” Hill said. “My students would say, ‘My mother was pregnant with me when we crossed the border.’ They are empathetic toward these immigrants because that’s who they are.”

She knew the students were responding to her creative lessons when they expressed interest in the foods immigrants were eating on the boats. One day they drew three items they would have put in their suitcases. On another, they staged a reenactment, with students assuming the identity of a real immigrant, complete with entrance interview and medical and citizenship tests, which was presented to the Springdale school board.

Hill graduated last spring and began teaching at Northside Elementary in Rogers this fall.