Believing Makes it So

Dr. Lynne Smith has been teaching for more than 23 years. Since graduating from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, she has gone from elementary, through middle school education to professional development.

As a professor in NKU's College of Education and Human Services, Smith has immersed herself in advisory committee work for the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development, the Kentucky Reading Project and the Northern Kentucky Writing Project. These efforts focus primarily on increasing teachers' skills in reading and writing instruction.

"Reading is very complicated," she says. "What we are trying to do is show ways to address the certain needs kids have, look at that their achievement and keep them moving."

Smith says NKU's encouragement of literacy within the state, and the innovative flexibility of its curriculums is why she's here.

"I have the freedom to adapt and change the curriculum as things come up," she says. "I like the connection between undergraduate and graduate programs. By doing things like putting our students in the field with teachers, we're able to begin addressing issues appearing at the graduate level, with our undergraduates."

Smith says feedback from the field, where professionals say NKU graduates are experienced and prepared, is proof the approach works. "Graduate students are constantly saying, 'So and so recommended NKU,'" says Smith. "I feel like we try to do the same things for our students that we ask they do for theirs."

Smith's teaching philosophy is based on her belief that today's teachers must - and do - believe they have the power to make a child achieve.

"The model for teaching reading and writing I really like goes like this: If you say there's a deficit, then you're saying there's something wrong with the child," she says. "If you say only that it's different, then you empower yourself to figuring out a different way to get the child to where you need them to go."