BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer
COLLEEN LUTOLF Flanked by teacher’s aide Michelle Sobieski and her Seeing Eye dog, Nate, Phyllis Volker listens to Middlesex County Superintendent of Schools Patrick Piegari announce Volker as Middlesex County Teacher of the Year Thursday. Phyllis Volker thought she was just attending one of many assemblies in her 35 years as an English teacher at Iselin Middle School last Friday.
What she did not know was that the students were not only gathered to attend the anti-smoking “Kick Butts” program, but that the assembly was also a clever ruse to honor Volker herself.
Volker has been chosen as Middlesex County’s Teacher of the Year.
“I’m too overwhelmed to think,” Volker said after Middlesex County Superintendent of Schools Patrick Piegari announced the award. “I’m thrilled.”
Volker was sitting in the front row of the auditorium before the announcement, but she had no idea a small ceremony in her honor was afoot — Volker has been blind for the past 30 years. But sometimes, even her own students doubt it.
“She’s told people to stop chewing gum,” one of Volker’s language arts students, Abby Struck, 13, said.
“She memorizes voices so she knows where you sit,” said Parth Patel, 11.
As a recipient of the county award, Volker’s name will be submitted for consideration to become the New Jersey Teacher of the Year.
“This is extremely unique,” Piegari told the assembled student body about Volker winning the award. “There are 25 districts in the county. Sometimes things are close. But this wasn’t a close one; this was a slam dunk.”
Volker was 27 and had been teaching five years when she lost her sight to diabetic retinitis, she said.
Instead of giving up the career she said she knew she wanted since kindergarten, Volker took a five-month hiatus from teaching to attend the New Jersey Commission for the Blind’s rehabilitation center, so she could learn how to teach despite being blind.
“Woodbridge was really wonderful,” she said. “I wanted to return to my teaching job so I had to learn Braille and mobility skills.”
For the past 11 years, Michelle Sobieski, a teacher’s aide, has worked alongside Volker.
“They work well together,” Principal Jacqueline Miller said. “It’s a wonderful relationship that is also a model for the students.”
Volker also teaches with the help of Nate, her Seeing Eye dog.
The 11-year-old golden retriever has been by Volker’s side for the past nine years, Volker said.
“Seeing Eye is very careful about who is going to be trained,” Volker said. “They came to the school and sat in my class. They chose Nate, who is a very gentle and calm dog. They try to match the dog to the person’s lifestyle.”
Although Volker’s students could not say enough great things about their teacher: that she’s very intelligent, that she’s blind but still knows a lot about books, and that she makes all her students feel comfortable, they became visibly and audibly excited when the subject comes around to Nate.
“We joke around here that everybody speaks to Nate first and then to me,” Volker said.
“Sometimes, when he gets bored, he’ll walk around the class and smell you,” Samantha Samsel, 12, said.
“We had a birthday party for Nate,” Kripa Patel, 12, said. “He likes popcorn.”
Nate is even incorporated into the seventh-grade curriculum.
“We had a lesson where we made Nate birthday cards and inside we had to write a poem; it was a homework assignment,” Brian Wirt, 13, said.
While her blindness may be seen as a disability to some, Volker said it becomes a conduit, not a barrier, to communication in the classroom.
“They do me the real honor of forgetting about my blindness,” Volker said of her students. “It doesn’t create an obstruction between us, although they think they can get away with a little more. I think they forget I have the sense of hearing.”
Students are more apt to come to her for advice as well, Volker said.
“Students come to me for help because they feel like if I can’t see them I won’t judge them,” she said.
For many teachers, being appreciated by their students is an award in itself –– and Volker doesn’t fall short there either.
“She deserves that award,” Brandon Herkalo, 12, said. “She’s a nice teacher.”