Katie Collins, Alabama’s new Teacher of the Year from Bluff Park Elementary, has spent 20 years in the classroom — and says today’s kids face a new kind of challenge.
“The kids in our classrooms don’t know how to solve problems,” Collins said.
Collins said parents today have become overly protective because they fear their children getting hurt — and that fear may be limiting key growth opportunities.
For example, parents may hear about a child being abducted while playing outside their home in North Dakota and, as a result, think they can’t let their child play outside anymore, Collins said.
“We’re very anxious in parenting,” she said. “We as a society are overprotecting our children in the real world — and underprotecting them in the virtual one,” she said.
The result is crippling for kids, who most of the time can do a whole lot more than their parents think they can, Collins said. And the kids become anxious and fearful because their parents are anxious, she said.
“The data is telling us that kids walking around in our schools are the most anxious generation. They are the most fragile generation,” Collins said. “It’s a national mental health crisis.”
Collins, who will be taking this next school year off to travel the state and motivate other teachers, hopes to
spend a lot of her time encouraging teachers to be catalysts for change.
“We have the power as teachers to change the narrative, to flip the script,” she said. “Education is transformative.”
Collins said she will be promoting a curriculum from a nonprofit called Let Grow that she has been using since January. Its primary focus is helping children build independence, she said. It encourages children to be creative and think outside the box about their capabilities, she said. As a teacher, it only takes about five minutes of class time a month, but the results have been astounding, she said.
One of her first-grade students made sweet potato fries in an air fryer by herself. Another asked her parents if she could start doing her own laundry, and a first-grade boy vacuumed his entire house, she said. All it took was a little instruction. Parents quickly started texting her, asking what happened to their children, she said.
Collins also will be pushing another curriculum called Let’s Play, which encourages children to engage in real physical playtime instead of virtual games. Kids are encouraged to form play clubs and given two simple rules: Be safe and solve your own problems, she said.
Collins also hopes to join forces with the Alabama 2025–26 Alternate Teacher of the Year, Aubrey Bennett from George Washington Carver High School in Birmingham, to go around the state in the car she has been provided for a year by Alfa and do a podcast from that car. She wants to interview teachers across the state, much like Jerry Seinfeld did with his show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
“We just want to get in there and get to know teachers all through the state and interview them and encourage them to keep going,” Collins said. “Bring unity and let teachers know they are seen.”
Collins is at least the eighth teacher from Hoover to win Alabama Teacher of the Year. Others have included Robin Litaker from Trace Crossings Elementary in 1997, Ann Dominick-Hardin from South Shades Crest Elementary in 1999, Tonya Perry from Berry Middle in 2000, Tammy Dunn from Spain Park High in 2003, Cameron McKinley from Riverchase Elementary in 2006, Pamela Harman from Spain Park High in 2007 and Suzanne Culbreth from Spain Park High in 2012.
Collins started her career at Thompson High School in 2005, teaching French, ACT preparation and computer science, but high school really wasn’t her calling.
After two years, she moved to Hoover City Schools, where she taught first grade at Gwin Elementary and English as a Second Language and French at Bumpus and Simmons middle schools.
She spent two years teaching preschool at Covenant Day School in Homewood, then came back to Hoover to teach a community family literacy program for adults from other countries at Gwin before moving to Bluff Park Elementary in 2017. She has been at Bluff Park ever since and says she’s found her sweet spot in elementary education.
Geri Evans, a fellow teacher at Bluff Park and former finalist for Alabama Teacher of the Year, wrote in a recommendation letter that Collins is a master teacher with a comprehensive knowledge of curriculum and the ability to engage students.
“She combines subjects seamlessly into meaningful units of study that require in-depth thinking and hands-on learning,” Evans wrote. “Every student in one of Mrs. Collins’ classes has felt loved and genuinely cared for, as she prioritizes relationship building alongside instilling a love for learning.”
Collins is known for her project-based learning units, including a farmers market that has first-grade students grow plants, market them and sell them to the community. The students measure the plants and record observations, do persuasive writing and video recordings to market the plants, and count and track the money as it is received.
Last year, the students raised $4,000, with the proceeds supporting additional projects at the school.
Collins has secured more than $70,000 worth of grants over the years, including funding for Bluff Park Elementary’s greenhouse.
Collins said one of the keys to good teaching is building relationships with students.
“You have to know your students,” she said. “We’re not going to get anywhere if we don’t really care about kids.”
She spends the first few weeks of each year building a culture in her classroom and getting to know the likes, dislikes and personalities of her students.
“They’re all so different,” she said. “If I’m going to teach them, they have to know that I really care about them … and that it’s a safe place to learn and grow and make mistakes.”
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