Nash Named Teacher Of Year

Cindy Nash, a fifth-grade teacher this past year at Harrison Elementary School, is not your traditional teacher.

Recognized as the Warsaw Community Schools Teacher of the Year, Nash always has been a bit unconventional.

"My teacher told my first-grade class to draw a poster of something in the circus," Nash remembers with a smile. "I drew a green elephant and another girl told me I couldn't draw that because elephants weren't green."

At the end of the first-grade contest, Nash's individuality came out on top. Her poster won the circus poster contest. Today, Nash uses the green elephant as a symbol for her teaching.

"I like to help my kids who feel different - (to know) it's okay to be who you are," says Nash, her classroom filled with a plethora of green elephants.

"My most intense belief is I want to take children's strengths and make them stronger," says Nash.

Nash, who received her bachelor's degree in elementary education at Anderson University and her master's at IPFW, considers herself "non-traditional." Just recently, Nash and Ethel Ringle, another teacher at Harrison, were approved to teach a multi-age third- and fourth-grade class next school year. The class is a project-based and textbook-free curriculum that still meets Indiana State standards. Nash, hoping to "work outside the box", designed the new curriculum with Ringle.

Nash also is pursuing a career in children's books and considers herself a "storyteller."

"Kids hang on to my stories," says Nash, who has taught for 24 years in the Warsaw Schools system.

Nash is married to Tony Nash and has two daughters, Hillary, a freshman at Warsaw Community High School and Kassidy, a fourth-grader at Harrison.