Teacher of the Year -- April 24, 2005

ByABC News
April 24, 2005, 11:39 AM

  -- A weekly feature on This Week.

America's "teacher of the year" was honored at the White House this week by President Bush. The winner, Jason Kamras from the Sousa Middle School in Washington, D.C., is inspiring students in one of D.C.'s toughest neighborhoods. ABC News went there this week to hear some of his students -- and some of his secrets.

Bruce Beaman, seventh grader, Sousa Middle School: "Most of the seventh graders that take Mr. Kamras' class are more confident in their work, in math and sometimes in other subjects."

Jason Kamras, teacher of the year: "I like that challenge of taking a subject matter that children typically don't gravitate towards and finding a creative way to bring it to them. When you go to the grocery store, when you go to the movies, when you're making a recipe -- any of those, you're using math. You're estimating all the time. And, just pointing that out to people and then building upon that natural use of mathematics, I think it makes it less scary for children."

Beaman: "Math wasn't really my best subject. I used to like reading. Now, with Mr. Kamras, math is just-- I can't wait to get to his class."

Kamras: "It is working. I'm very proud of the fact that my students have really had significant achievement gains. One little trick I like using I call edible math. We had large sugar cookies that I brought in, and brought in canisters of different colored frosting, and had the kids draw radii and diameters and circumferences and central angles in different colored frosting. And afterwards, one of my student said, 'You know what, Mr. Kamras? This is the first time I got to eat my math assignment.' And, he said, you know, 'I'm never gonna forget what a radius or a diameter is.' "

Ieasha James, sixth grader, Sousa Middle School: "The way he has all this stuff is very 21st century, so it's more fun."

Kamras: "You can see this big smile on my face right now. Nothing makes me happier. And, it just-- All that hard work has paid off. And you see this confidence brimming inside of them. And, you know that that's gonna carry over into everything else that they do."

Real Time with Bill Maher:

Maher: "Actually, the president was supposed to spend Earth Day at a National Park in Tennessee. Get this: It had to be canceled because there was a freak hail storm. So instead, they had a photo op at the airport, because nothing says conservation like an oil man standing in front of a 747."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Stewart: "We turn our attention now to the Vatican where it's all over but the shepherding. Ratzinger grew up in Germany in the 1930s -- a time of subtle transition for Germany. As a youth, Joseph pursued a variety of activities from athletics to hiking with a dynamic group of young go-getters. [video clip of Hitler youth] To be fair, membership in that group was compulsory and as Ratzinger's biographer John Allen has noted Ratzinger's tenure was brief and unenthusiastic -- as evidenced by his basement full of unsold Hitler youth cookies."

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno:

Leno: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture came out with their new food pyramid. Have you looked around? Most Americans today are food pyramids -- small at the top, wide at the bottom. Full of food."