Editor’s Note: Yukon Public Schools’ 11 “Teacher of the Year” finalists are being profiled in The Yukon Progress. Finalists were selected by peers to represent their school sites. A committee of past YPS winners and professional development representatives will select the Teacher of the Year with the winner announced at a March 26 banquet.
Lori Gossen has been awarded the 2019-20 Teacher of the Year for Lakeview Elementary School. This is Lori’s ninth-year teaching at Lakeview Elementary, but her twenty-seventh year as an educator.
Her prior experience includes three years at Shedeck Elementary in Yukon, eight years at Van Buren Elementary in Oklahoma City Public Schools and seven years at Weatherford Middle School in Weatherford.
Lori cherishes the time she spent at Southwestern Oklahoma State University where she earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with honors. Her coursework at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Central Oklahoma inspired her love of the library.
Her educational certifications have allowed her to work with students in grades pre-kindergarten through eight in general music, vocal music and as a library media specialist.
As a media specialist, she has had the honor of providing technology training to colleagues, students and families in two different school districts. As a librarian, she has enjoyed bringing the love of reading to many children.
Teaching is a family affair. Her husband and two children enjoy proving that over and over again as they volunteer to lend a helping hand in the library. When her twins were little, they learned the amount of devotion, determination, and dedication needed to teach.
Because of Lori’s teaching position they were able to grasp the idea of giving of oneself for a greater good. Now, they work behind the scenes to help other children receive the gift of reading.
Mrs. Gossen loves coordinating with her colleagues to bring engaging lessons to her students. Several years ago, a team teacher asked her to create a lesson about figurative language.
When Lori asked her co-worker which form of figurative language she needed her students to practice, her teammate told her, “All of them!”
In an effort to teach many concepts in a short period of time, she combined music with figurative language to come up with a rap that students could memorize quickly.
It warms Mrs. Gossen’s heart when many of her former students return to tell her they still use that rap when writing!
Although Mrs. Gossen has taught for 27 years, for her each day is a new day full of opportunities to inspire her students and to be inspired by them. Her experience has taught her that learning goes both ways.
In the library, she helps students find books to promote the love of reading and in return, her children retell the stories they have read!
She adores when her students come in to stump her on a book they have read just to see if she has read it, too. With technology, she loves to start students in programs to watch them teach her all the different ways to access it for an even more engaging lesson.
She believes the library is the perfect place for students to read, research, create and build a love of learning.
Of course, none of this would be possible without the caring community that is Yukon. The best decision Mrs. Gossen and her husband made for their family was to raise their children in Yukon.
“The opportunities this community provides help families to thrive, and while the city is beautiful with many offerings, it’s the people that make Yukon a place to come home to,” she said.
