St. Matthew teacher relies on non-traditional methods to bring lessons to life

When teacher Kim Markey was a girl in Mount Prospect, she played school in her best friend’s basement.

Each September, she loved getting new school supplies. It always was a thrill to catch a whiff when opening a new book.

“I was one of those geeks,” Markey said laughing.

She still loves reading. Her husband Jim calls her “a voracious reader.”

Markey, 55, turned her passion for reading and learning into a successful 21-year teaching career.

She is in her third year at St. Matthew Parish School in Glendale Heights, where Markey teaches reading and language arts to students in the fifth through eighth grades.

St. Matthew Principal Ann Toutant and marketing director Denise Petty nominated Markey for the Shaw Local News Network Thank You, Teachers series.

In their nomination, they wrote that Markey “is encouraging her students to view words jumping off the pages in her class by using nontraditional methods to bring a story to life.”

One example is her creating a board game for “The House on Mango Street.”

Her biggest strength, they wrote, is her ability to create relationships with her students.

Doing so “fosters their ability to take risks in the classroom through discussions, debate and written work,” the nominators wrote.

That builds students’ confidence and comprehension.

Markey said in our video age it sometimes is hard to get youths to read, “but I’ve found that the books I’ve chosen are really engaging.”

“The House on Mango Street” was read by her eighth graders this academic year.

“It’s written in vignettes, which is a new style for them,” she said. “At first, they didn’t know what to make of it, but, let me tell you, by the end of the book, they loved it.”

Markey builds a rapport with students by having simple conversations with them. And the talks are not all about class. They often are about life.

“Sometimes, I don’t think kids have the opportunity to just sit and talk,” she said. “I do like having time to find out what’s going on in their lives and what they like.”

“I love having these relationships,” Markey said. “I’ve taught at other schools where the kids will come back to say ‘hi.’ That means the world to me.”

Markey started her career at the Islamic Foundation School in Villa Park.

“I loved watching them live their faith. I wanted to be able to have that for myself in my own faith,” she said.

She has by teaching at schools in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet the past 19 years.

Markey, who earned her teaching degree at Roosevelt University in Chicago, previously taught at St. Paul’s in Joliet, Holy Family in Bensenville and St. Joseph’s in Addison.

She and Jim, a retired bartender, live in Glendale Heights. They have no children.

“My students are my kids,” she said. “It’s very satisfying and gratifying.”

Markey hopes students learn “everyone has opinions and we are all allowed to have opinions and we need to respect opinions even if they differ from our own.”