By Nikki Ackerman
Staff Writer

While being named state Teacher of the Year is a huge accomplishment for any recipient, the prestigious honor was especially noteworthy for 2011 winner Maureen Look-Ainsworth.
Having trudged through a lifetime of landmines–from a traumatic childhood to a difficult divorce to a debilitating sleep disorder–the teacher (known as “Ms. Look” or, backwards, “Ms. Kool” to her students) has certainly earned her recognition.
“My passion for teaching comes from being the underdog my whole life,” she explained in a sit-down interview with the Express News. “I have great compassion for special learning and gray area students, and also for those dealing with mental illness in their lives.”

A rough road...
Although she has obtained several higher learning degrees and become a much beloved teacher, the Waukesha educator has not had an easy ride.
With a paranoid schizophrenic father who was violent toward his family and a cognitively disabled brother who remains institutionalized, Look-Ainsworth’s life was colored by the effects of mental illness.
“I didn’t ask to be a child disadvantaged at the hands of a mentally ill parent,” she said. “Thankfully my mother had a vision and focus for (me and my siblings) and our family has overcome more than we could have ever fathomed in breaking cycles.”
The personal struggles did not end there.
By age 24 Look-Ainsworth had weathered a very messy divorce and became a single mom to her two young sons, and she went on to be diagnosed with a hearing disability as well as sleep disorders that left her exhausted around the clock.
“I’ve been so tired all my life, but I keep pushing,” she said. “My doctor was amazed at all I’ve accomplished with such a lack of sleep.”
All these less-than-ideal circumstances, while daunting at times, have made it possible for Look-Ainsworth to be the involved and empathetic teacher she is today, she said.
“Kids come from the same types of backgrounds–blended families, divorced families, families with cycles needing to be broken,” she said. “We as teachers need to educate on an emotional level, an academic level, an introspective level, so that the kids understand they are not the reason so many things go wrong in their lives.”
There have been some silver linings along the way for the teacher, such as meeting her husband, Ron, a widowed father of four, on a missions trip in Mexico, and blending two families of a total of six children, most of them now in their twenties.
“It hasn’t been the easiest road, but I always try to do what’s in the best interest of the children,” she said.

The adventure of learning...
Because of all she has been through, the Richfield resident–who is in her 25th year of teaching and has taught eighth grade science and engineering at Horning Middle School in Waukesha for the past 12 years–has a special place in her heart for kids going through those difficult-to-navigate in-between ages.
“I love middle school,” she said. “(The students) revitalize me, they energize me.”
During this critical juncture in these students’ learning, Look-Ainsworth has made it her mission to take the lessons out of the textbooks and bring them to life in exciting ways.
“It’s a surprise every day as I bombard them with hands-on activities, videos, scientific experiments,” she said. “Middle school-aged kids need to be standing, speaking, actively learning the entire time. They need to be generating their own thoughts, creating things, taking risks.”
Some of Look-Ainsworth’s techniques include walk-and-talk study sessions during which the students mill around the classroom reading their notes aloud to help them better retain the information; having the students walk through a life-size human heart duct-taped to the floor; and creating a human periodic table with the each kid “becoming” a different element.
“I make everything real,” the teacher said. “I take whatever they are struggling with and make it larger than life. They learn so much in (the year I have them) that I know I have transformed their lives.”
One classroom favorite is the year-end forensic science and crime scene investigation unit for which the students use evidence meticulously staged by Look-Ainsworth to solve a mock crime.
“(For this unit), the kids fingerprint school staff, they write up search warrants for teachers, we’ve staged a car fire, we’ve gone to a firing range,” said Look-Ainsworth. “The kids love it.”
However much of herself she pours into her students, Look-Ainsworth’s reach goes beyond the four walls of her classroom.
Along with being a grant writer for educational needs, she gives back in a variety of other ways as well, spearheading the Horning Middle School Clothesline, which provides clothing and winter attire for needy children, as well as Boxes of Love, a Thanksgiving meal program for hungry school families.
Look-Ainsworth also ran the middle school’s popular Science Club for which she would take members to places such as Devil’s Lake, the Museum of Science and Industry and the Cave of the Mounds, helping with the fee for students in need of financial assistance.
“I enjoy taking them to places they may never have the chance to see,” she said.

The year of a lifetime...
Since the teacher earned her recent honors–first as a Kohl Award recipient, then as the Teacher of the Year in the middle school category and finally as the state Teacher of the Year–life has been a whirlwind for Look-Ainsworth.
She learned she was Middle School/Junior High School Teacher of the Year at an all-school assembly in September, thus putting her in the running for state Teacher of the Year (there are four categories), which she was named later that month, and “it’s been non-stop ever since,” she said.
Not only has the Look-Ainsworth been participating in all the activities that go along with the recognition–including meeting President Barack Obama in May–but she has also been studying for her National Boards for Professional Teaching Standards certification and going through the process of becoming an official U.S. citizen.
“I’ve lived here since I was three years old,” said the Canadian-born Look-Ainsworth, “but I didn’t become an American citizen until Sept. 10, the day after I was named (Middle School) Teacher of the Year.”
The teacher will be spending most of August preparing for her fall move to teach fifth grade at Randall STEM Elementary School, also in Waukesha.
“It has definitely been a crazy year,” she said. “But I wouldn’t change a thing.”