Linda Rost

Linda Rost is the 2020 Montana Teacher of the Year and a finalist for National Teacher of the Year. She teaches biology, anatomy and physiology, chemistry, and science research at Baker High School in rural Montana. Linda has successfully facilitated twenty-four of her students competing at national or international science competitions. Here are her insights.

I always tell people Baker, Montana, is about a hundred miles from the nearest Walmart and McDonald’s, and we drive three hours to get to the airport. It’s a small town of about 2,000 people with rolling hills and cattle. We have a Dollar Store and a Runnings, the two biggest stores in town. Other than that, there’s a coffee shop that everybody loves; it’s called the Coffeehouse.

My dad was born here and went to high school here. I wish that he had graduated here because they have all the graduates’ pictures in the hallway. But it’s wonderful when he visits and walks down the hall telling me memories. He dissected frogs in my current classroom and developed his love for science in this classroom, eventually going on to get his Ph.D. and become a biology professor. It creates a special connection to my classroom and to teaching, and makes me want to stay here.

Now, my son is a seventh grader at my high school and has dyslexia. He’s very visual. In school, he doesn’t write notes; instead, he makes diagrams. He makes concept maps of the topics he’s learning about, and his teachers encourage this. He’s excellent at speaking, communicating, and learning. But when much of what we do in education focuses on reading and writing, it downplays an individual’s other brilliance.

So, when our son was younger, he watched a ton of YouTube videos and became a little walking encyclopedia of science. Many people think he’s just reading science books, but he dislikes reading. He learns from watching videos and listening to them. As educators and parents, we should embrace the idea that there is more than one way to learn.

Also, our son likes graphic novels. So, we get those and he reads them, but we also read to him. And then he gets hyper-fixated on a topic. In addition, we support his creativity; he’s always coming up with a new plan, like building a tree house. He’s drawing diagrams and schematics of how he wants to build the tree house. He’s always making something or planning something. And that’s just who he is, and he’s really good at it.