Krista earned her Bachelors of Arts in Elementary Education from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her Masters of Arts in Curriculum Development with a Reading Specialty from Grand Canyon University. Mrs. Gypton has taught for 7 years, the last two at Empire High School in Vail. As the founder and advisor for Empire’s MOVE (Making Others’ Voices Essential) Club, she helps raise awareness and funds for Darfur. She and MOVE members will travel to South Africa in March 2008.

• “When you are young, inspired, and motivated to make it happen, you find that there are many forces that surround you that attempt to steal your dreams…hard-nosed and inflexible colleagues, unimaginative curriculum, and community nay-sayers. But I refused to cave in. I was teaching English and I wanted to show my students that the world is the ultimate textbook. English is the most incredible subject to teach because reading and writing are the two skills you need to make all other disciplines happen. It is one of the few that, with just about everything you do, you can explain when it will be used in the real world.”

• Teaching is not a job; it is a lifestyle. Good teachers cannot just close their doors at the end of the day and leave their job behind them. Good teachers stop and reflect on every day in the classroom, on each student they saw that day, and on every lesson. They ask themselves, “What can I do to improve?” Good teachers lie awake at night worrying about that one student who has suddenly become reclusive, or the one student who is struggling to keep up. Good teachers learn about and care about their students outside of the classroom and understand that the life outside the campus walls plays a huge role in the life within the walls. Good teachers do not just teach content; they help students see how the content applies to their lives and the world around them.”

• “Our students are not just minds for us to fill with information. They are people filled with the desire to be valued. Through our passion, we show them that they are valuable and that we care enough to bring out the best in them. If we respect our students and ourselves and let our lives be connected within the classroom, we can ensure that more stories about caring and passionate teachers fill the world.”

• In her letter of support, Krista’s principal Cynthia Lee writes, “To remind myself what is most important in education, I often spend time in Mrs. Gypton’s classroom watching as she impacts our students’ lives while helping them to rise to very high standards. Her students excel on both our district and state assessments, but more importantly, they leave her class prepared for the next step in their life, whether that is their next English class, college, or the workplace. Many students personally request Mrs. Gypton as a teacher. They say that they worked hard in her class and learned so much about literature, writing, and life.”