Doings Article Profiles Golden Apple Finalist and English teacher Kim Williams

Photo Credit - Kimberly Fornek Sun Times Media

Hinsdale Central teacher understands waiting for an apple

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by Kimberly Fornek - SunTimes Media

Updated: April 9, 2013 9:35PM

HINSDALE — Hinsdale High School District 86 has many wonderful teachers, and one has been singled out for special recognition.

Kimberly Williams, who teaches English Hinsdale Central, is a finalist for a Golden Apple Award.

Her students second the nomination.

Two students walking in the hall at last week praised Williams at the mention of her name.

“She’s the most kind teacher,” said Jacob White, a junior from Clarendon Hills. “She understands what life is like in high school. She understands we’ve got all these classes and not just one subject.”

Williams explains how the literature they study applies to the real world, said Ryan Haff, a junior from Oak Brook.

“I always wanted to work with teenagers,” said Williams, who has been teaching since 1996. “I enjoy talking with them. They are at a stage in life when they’re asked to take on some of the responsibilities of an adult, but they don’t have all the freedoms an adult has. I understand what they are going through.”

Williams helps her students explore those feelings through the texts they read.

“When we read, we rehearse. We see life in other ways and other places without actually experiencing it,” Williams said.

In works such as “Romeo and Juliet,” the students “see how the characters’ decisions work out or don’t work out.” The classes discuss the characters’ actions and the author’s choices.

In one of her classes, students read the nonfiction work “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, which recounts how a top student and athlete, after graduating college, hitchhikes to Alaska to live alone in the wilderness. He dies on his journey.

The students are asked, “Was he an idealistic hero or an irrational fool?”

Hinsdale Central Principal Michael McGrory said Williams is “a very compassionate individual and a great communicator, not just with the students, but with the parents, too.”

One of her remarkable qualities, McGrory said, is “her drive to meet the needs of all her students.”

She is always reviewing what worked and what didn’t to improve her teaching methods, he said.

Williams had been teaching for three years at Hinsdale South, when she started her family and wanted to spend more time with her young sons. She took a job with University of Illinois at Chicago, doing field instruction of student teachers and conducting a course that prepares teachers to teach English.

It was a colleague from UIC who nominated her.

“I have seen her mentor and guide her student teachers,” said Renee Dolezal, UIC English education student teacher coordinator. “She is a motivator for students and adults, and she understand how to incorporate progressive methods and social justice into the classroom.”