February 25, 1998
Teacher rescues dangerous minds
By Eric Dick
Herald editor
In a sports world where professional athletes choke coaches, throw critics through plate glass windows, and trash Olympic hotel rooms, Traverse City native Daniel Gaudard has emerged as the personification of the true value of athletics.
Quietly, of course. There are no video highlights of the Pontiac School District teacher. There is no Sports Illustrated cover story telling how she convinced a roomful of wild, undisciplined second-graders to appreciate an education. There is no shoe endorsement for the former starting point guard for the Ferris State Bulldogs, who, after her first day on the job at school, came home crying.
But in the core of athletics, where professional athletes have drifted away but high school coaches still stress hard work and dedication, Gaudard's triumph is Gold.
The Pontiac School District has named Gaudard the Elementary Teacher of the Year. Those who know her would expect no less.
"That would not surprise me one iota because in high school her work ethic was unbelievable," said Jim Anderson, her former basketball coach at Traverse City Senior High who now runs Michigan Basketball Academy, a youth training center that emphasizes fundamentals. "When she did something, she did it full bore. ... She really epitomized what I was trying to get to."
Gaudard, who graduated as Daniel Daniels in 1983, credits athletics for her hastened success in the classroom. The Ferris State walk-on, who later earned an athletic scholarship, earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice before marriage and two children led her toward Oakland University and a teaching degree in 1996. She only began teaching two years ago, in Pontiac, where her work that first year with second-graders earned her the Teacher of the Year distinction.
"I took over this class because they had been through three teachers that had quit," Gaudard said. "They were a very difficult group."
Describing these 29 inner-city kids as difficult is like describing the Titanic as a boat with a bit of a leak. School personnel had nicknamed this bunch "the class from hell." They would fight, throw pencils and paper wads about the room, and cuss - at each other and at their teacher. "Fistfights, flipping you off, total disrespect; it was crazy," Gaudard explained. "I have never seen anything like this."
Her first day proved overwhelming. She came home crying, saying later that probably the hardest thing she has ever had to do was get through that first day. "My husband said that it was the worst I ever looked when I came home that day," she said.
The situation was so bad that three teachers before her had thrown in the towel. Not those kids, they seemed to reason, not for that salary.
But Gaudard, as acquaintances will tell you, does not quit. Quitting, giving up, walking away - whatever you want to call it - is just not her style. "Anything she's ever started she's always finished," said her mother, Barbara Daniels of Traverse City, adding that her husband, Chuck, a longtime Traverse City Area Public Schools teacher and former coach, always emphasized hard work to achieve goals.
So, on the second day of class in Pontiac, Gaudard returned with the resolve of a playmaker determined to not let the game slip away. She told her students what behavior was acceptable and what was not. She swiftly issued reprimands that were consistent and fair. She explained that bad behavior has consequences. "I came back like a drill sergeant and I established really strict guidelines," she said.
"They needed me to be strong. It would have been easy to turn my back, but I didn't' want to."
When students misbehaved, she assumed their roles, showing them how foolish they were acting. They laughed at her antics, then realized they were their own.
Slowly the students came around. They discovered that education had not abandoned them. And they began to learn.
"I think they learned by my staying that they weren't so bad," Gaudard said. "They took pride in chasing the other teachers away, they really did. But then they realized that they aren't too bad. It's the choices they made are bad."
Gaudard is in her second year teaching now at Emerson Elementary. She is one of hundreds teaching in the district's 21 elementary schools, where other outstanding teachers each day make their own difference, Gaudard said.
Few, though, likely demonstrate the hard work and dedication that Gaudard has carried over from the basketball court to everyday life, where broken homes leave broken spirits and perhaps only a good teacher can mend the pieces.