A fifth-grade teacher from Pella has been named the state’s History Teacher of the Year and Iowa Council for the Social Studies Elementary Teacher of the Year.

Rebecca Helland teaches at Jefferson Intermediate School and was nominated for both awards. She is also a mentor teacher for Pella Community Schools as part of Iowa’s teacher leadership system. Helland tells KNIA/KRLS News she aims to engage students by asking questions that are worth exploring and to give them a broad experience in social studies in the classroom.

“A lot of people think that social studies is a lot about memorizing things like dates, names of people, or states or capitals,and those kinds of things, and while those are pieces and components of the social sciences, the bigger topic is more of those conceptual lenses and learning pieces,” she says. “So it’s about asking great questions for kids–things that are relevant to them, things that they want to answer, things that are engaging, things that are controversial, and helping them to talk about it and collaborate with their peers.”

She says some of the best moments for her in a classroom is when students are leading discussion.

“One of the indicators of success for me personally, is when an adult comes into my classroom and they can’t find me, because I’m not the center of attention and I’m not the focus of what’s going on in the room, but rather, I’m coaching alongside a student and helping them through whatever they’re working on,” Helland says. “Another indicator of success is kids asking great questions of each other, so initially a lot of focus is on is I’ll be the teacher asking those questions, but then I’ll be equipping and enabling them to ask those great questions of each other.”