When leaving Ms. Kelly Lutzker’s class it’s not unusual to walk out with a couple of bucks.
She hands out Lutzker bucks which are fake money that students earn at the end of the week for completing assignments on time.
Students use them to buy snacks like poptarts and chips, among other things. Ms. Lutzker’s favorite pop tart flavor is s’mores, which she has to hand out to lucky recipcants. She started handing out Lutzker bucks when she taught fourth grade because the students had classroom jobs. She then brought them to middle and high school but started to give them out for completing assignments on time.
Ms. Lutzker, whose favorite subject in school was math, is now in her first year as a geometry teacher at West Potomac High School. While this is her first year teaching at West Po, she has taught fourth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th grade before.
“Geometry is really hard to teach for me,” Ms. Lutzker said. “My brain is more of an algebra brain, so geometry takes a lot of thinking for me.”
Ms. Lutzker knew she wanted to become a teacher when she took a class her senior year of high school called child development. Two and three year olds would come to the class and they would run a preschool there.
“That was really fun,” Ms. Lutzker said. “I found out I loved teaching”
Ms. Lutzker went to Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and studied elementary education.
One thing that Ms. Lutzker has learned from her students is the slang that is used.
“ I’ve learned what’s cool and what’s not cool,” said Ms. Lutzker.
Something Ms. Lutzker wishes her students did automatically is turn in their assignments on time and not let themselves get too far behind where they struggle to come back.they can’t come back from.
“I do really love teaching even if it gets difficult or I’m having a bad day there’s always someone to make me laugh,” Ms.Lutzker said.