- I love pushing them and stretching them to think for themselves and to kind of think outside of the box.

We're not just learning how to form the letters, but we're learning how to form those thoughts.

(gentle music) My name is Dari Thacker and I teach at Silver Summit Elementary.

My current role is fourth and fifth grade teacher.

What I really love about teaching is helping each student to feel like they can succeed.

And not succeed like get the best grades, but to help them see their own potential, help them recognize their strengths.

- Doesn't matter what time of day I walk in, I can walk in there and I all immediately feel a calmness.

Kids are the focus all the time.

I wish you could come in and watch her classroom because it's productive.

I never see them doing nothing, which considering some of them are on independent work, that's pretty amazing.

(gentle music) - I have two mantras and my students know them well.

First one is you be the super solver, and the second one is you can achieve when you believe.

And when I tell them that I always accent the can because when you believe in yourself there's nothing that stops you.

(gentle music) I really feel like that is most achieved when they have a variety of ways to demonstrate that ability.

And I teach coding to the kindergartners through the fifth graders because I really want the kids to feel like they can create.

We were learning about motion and forces of motion, energy.

So with my kindergartners through third graders, they designed boats.

- They've got on, created their own 3D boat pattern.

The kids got to see their little boats created on the 3D printer.

- And we did competitions, which one was the longest, which one was the shortest, which one could float, which one could hold the most weight.

- Then she thought of a way for them to float their boats right in classroom, which was rain gutters sealed on both ends.

And these kids were floating their boats.

They were also keeping data on the weight the boats could hold versus the length and the width of the boats.

(gentle music) - As the boats were going down, they're like, wow, yours was the widest and yours is having the hardest time going down the track.

I wonder if it's because of this.

So they were doing that thinking that they, that we're constantly trying to get them to do.

And I think that's one of the greatest things with the coding and engineering for sure is that they see that they can actually create something.

And we're talking about kindergartners or first graders, second graders, third graders.

It was really incredible to see that.

(gentle music) - Mrs. Thacker is a natural teacher, but what makes you truly unique is her desire to solve any problem that comes her way.

(gentle music) - I do know what it has taken to offer all of these different opportunities to my students.

And I am not one who.. (gentle music) Who settles for mediocre.

I'm always trying to improve.

So what it means to me.

I don't think earning this award changes who I am at all.

I guess, in a way to feel like somebody else thinks that what I'm doing, is enough.

That's kind of, it gives me a little boost.

(laughing) (gentle music)