Wy’east teacher in national spotlight

Jed Mickelson, seventh- and eighth-grade teacher at Wy’east Middle School, will appear on the “Live! with Regis and Kelly” TV show Friday morning.

The show is featuring one of five teacher finalists for its Top Teacher award, each day this week.

Online voting to choose the overall winner runs through Monday, May 16 — one ballot per email address, per day.

For more information: http://www.dadt.com/live/contest/topteachersearch/11.

“Live! With Regis and Kelly” episode featuring Wy’east Middle School teacher Jed Mickelson.

11 a.m. Friday, ABC.

Middle-school kids: the “tweeners.” Often loud or brash, maybe painfully shy. Bursting with wild energy, or looking for any reason to engage.

They’re all of the above, a group some teachers would rather dodge. Not Jed Mickelson.

“I like them because they’re weird. They have that wonderful blend of youth and innocence and fun that most people only have in childhood,” he said.

“But they’re also wrestling with abstract thoughts. They’re moldable,” Mickelson said. “In middle school, we can still have a powerful, positive role in their lives.”

He invokes a Goldilocks analogy: grade school, too naive; high school, already largely formed.

“I love middle school. I love wrestling with big issues, and you need a slightly bigger mind to deal with a big issue,” he said.

A visitor quickly begins to understand a few things about Mickelson, 33, who teaches English and social studies to Wy’east Middle School seventh- and eighth-graders: He’s keen on pushing students to success and not afraid to root out whatever holds them back.

He once began criminal justice studies at Washington State University in Pullman, only to reconsider.

“I realized you’re not curing problems, you’re taking care of problems. I wanted to get in front of it,” said the Tacoma-born, Spokane-raised educator who early on felt a calling to, “essentially, do good” for a living.

This week and last, Mickelson has been getting the celebrity treatment for doing good.

On May 2, a video team for the nationally broadcast “Live! with Regis and Kelly” television show taped him leading his class, while local TV and newspaper cameras looked on. The day before, the “Live!” crew interviewed both him and his biggest fan in their homes.

A four-minute tribute will air Friday on the “Live!” show, before Mickelson walks onto the New York City stage for a brief chat with its two stars.

He earned that honor for being named one of 12 contenders for the show’s Second Annual Top Teacher award, then emerging as one of five finalists after a nationwide online vote.

Before and after Mickelson’s Friday morning appearance, another round of online voting will decide a final winner.

“It was a bit surreal,” he said following the Vancouver TV frenzy. Which is far from where Mickelson likes to dwell. Give him the stark reality, the grit and bare emotion, and he’s in his element.

Take his class field trips up the Columbia River Gorge — he went annually before school budget cutbacks — to give social studies students a taste of the Oregon Trail, a bite of America’s westward expansion.

Mickelson, Wy’east colleague Michelle Annett and parents would lead more than 100 students to the summit of Mount Hamilton, which towers over Beacon Rock and Bonneville Dam. That’s eight miles of mostly uphill hiking, gaining a couple thousand feet of elevation — an eye-opener and blister-inducer to introduce a bunch of suburban kids, many strangers to any trails or tribulation, to 19th century migration.

“You can throw numbers at them: 2,000 miles, five months of walking,” he said. But that doesn’t really sink in. “How can they understand something if they don’t feel leg burn?” he said.

Mickelson recalls the moment he was set straight, himself. Coasting through ninth grade with a knack for hell-raising, he got some tough love that day: “Jed, you’re a smart young man. Why don’t you pull your head out of your… ?” a respected teacher told him.

Life was never the same.

“That stuck,” Mickelson said. “I wanted to aid other kids like that.” And so during his 10 years at Wy’east, an Evergreen district school in southeast Vancouver, he’s paid extra mind to students who need that sort of nudge.

“Sometimes, it’s simply listening to them. Sometimes all they need is a pencil and ears.” Other times “I really have to push them,” he said.

It’s that extra step that impressed Beth Hammer. After her daughter, Kendall, took Mickelson’s classes for two years, she came to appreciate his frankness. She’s noticed that many former students have excelled at Mountain View High School, where Kendall is a sophomore.

“He gets into the heart of maybe what’s keeping them from learning, and he does that with every kid,” Hammer said. Kendall’s relationship with her father was stressed, and “Jed helped her steer through that,” to see that she wasn’t to blame and could push through it, she said.

Hammer noticed the “Live!” contest last year and vowed to nominate Mickelson. She followed through on this year’s paperwork. Her home, festooned with signs and balooons, was where the video crew taped testimonials last week.

Mickelson is no pushover. He rides students to take responsibility and to meet academic and life challenges. He’s the rare “English teacher who loves numbers,” he said, crunching state testing results to see individual faults and where energy should be focused. He has embraced, rather than criticized, standardized testing, with stellar results. Recent test data show pass rates for his departing students had jumped a remarkable 40 points, to 79 percent.

“You don’t allow them to believe they can do anything less. You de-mystify the test,” he said. “They don’t have any reason to not pass. It’s their choice,” he reminds. “Once they feel empowered, you give them the tools for success.”

Mickelson is quick to share praise with Wy’east colleagues for a strong team effort. So the recent attention has been awkward. (He also was a finalist for an OnPoint Community Credit Union educators’ award, alongside Union High School French teacher Sheryl Meservey, who cracked the top five).

But he’s thrilled to fly east today for the all-expenses-paid New York stay, which includes tickets to a Broadway show and a couple of days free for touring.

Fellow finalists include two Alabamans (whose schools were spared tornado damage, recently,) a Maryland teacher, and one from New York state.

Each gets a profile and live appearance. Mickelson goes last on Friday.

He and his wife, Suzanne, who are parents to an 8-month-old, hope to check out Central Park and a few museums, and grab a special night out.

“I’m looking forward to a date with my wife,” he said.