From her witty attitude to her classy teaching style, Mrs. Betty Montague is a teacher who is loved and appreciated by many students and colleagues. We interviewed her to ask how teaching is going for her and some highlights from her years of teaching.
As we asked Mrs. Montague what her favorite part of teaching is she explains, “ helping kids become better writers,” makes her heart warmed. It’s true, her teaching skills when it comes to writing are no joke, she will help any student in her class to make sure they succeed. There are a lot of successful college writers thanks to Ms. Montague. Moreover, we continued to ask her what stuck out the most during her years of teaching and she answered, “Kids and parents have been very happy with how fast their kids learned how to write but also, when they go to college they got so happy because they were the only kids at college who were “getting good grades in all their classes not just English,” so that is the best part of her career because of the feedback she’s gotten from parents and kids”.
We then went on about life lessons because life lessons are what’s important, especially in teaching. What life lessons did teaching give you? “Patience with behaviors that are not necessarily acceptable while still having patience,” she says. That is very true because Ms. Montague is very patient with everyone and is very understanding.
Then we asked her, what is she hoping for the next generation of teachers? “That they figure out how to make teaching valuable with the advances of technology. I don’t see it happening. I think you need a teacher on their feet in front of kids talking to them and interacting with them. I don’t think technology is necessarily the way to go, but I hope since technology is here to stay and I accept that that teachers find a way to make sure kids are getting a good education in spite of the technology.” We agree with her because if we think back to the COVID times, remote learning was very difficult for everyone, so it is much better to be in the classroom in front of a physical teacher. “

Continuing the discussion, we asked Ms. Montague how she felt as she won the Crystal Apple award. She described it as “embarrassing,” though her teaching and peers say otherwise. She deems there were so many incredible educators though, and she does not want to feel singled out. She also exemplifies how numerous “teachers work their butts off at this job,” though not all get acknowledged. She believes all teachers deserve the honor but preaches “she could not have done it without the help of all the other educators.” As she talks about the award, she clarifies that all teachers work together to help all students succeed.
We asked Ms. Montague one of the most important questions that teachers often never find the answer to in their careers. How do you build good relationships with students? She answered, “Ask them what’s important to them.” Ms. Montague is known for her great teaching, but also for her connections with her students. She is one of the most understanding teachers here. She knows life can get hard sometimes, so she doesn’t penalize her students for it. Ms. Montague has taught many lessons in her career, but she says, “I think all the things and all the lessons that I teach that have an element of anti-racism are my best lessons because I feel so strongly about it and I think that’s hard to pull off as a white teacher, but I think I’ve even endeared my students to me because I stress it so much, so just about anything that involves teaching the kids that racism is wrong and that we need to develop as a society and anti-racist ways accepting one another the way we are instead of how we should be like each other how dumb is that what a boring world that would be.”
As we discuss with Ms. Montague about the courses she teaches, she clarifies how she has “mainly taught here at Doherty AP Language for 25 years and the CSU Pueblo classes in the last 12 years.” But also earlier “taught advanced skills, which is essentially the same, only the kids do not get college credit.” As she continuously works hard to educate the young for the better, she always finds a way to make learning memorable. The Spartan community deeply cherishes Ms. Montague because she significantly influences former and current students and is a treasure to our school. We cannot wait to see what Ms. Montague has in store for the rest of her time at Doherty.