Alberta teacher inspires Jimmy Kimmel to better know his staff — sorta
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A southern Alberta teacher has been making waves with a video in which she can recognize her students' voices without seeing them, even inspiring late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel to take a page from her book.
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'This is fun . . . It's a cute thing,' Kimmel said on his show Tuesday night, before playing the video showcasing how well Medicine Hat teacher Mackenzie Gill knows her students.
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In the video, the teacher sits in a chair and 20 or so students line up behind her. Without Gill seeing who is standing behind her chair, each student says, 'Hello, Miss Gill.' The teacher then identifies each of her tiny charges by name — providing a nice boost to their self esteem.
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'Well done, Miss Gill,' Kimmel said after sharing the video with his audience.
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'I thought it would be fun to do that here with some of my staff,' he continued.
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Kimmel then played a video in which he tried to do just that. No surprise, he f ailed to identify any of the show's staff nor his own grown son who is a television production assistant.
The Kimmel bit was funny, but it was also an ideal way to highlight the work of a teacher who appears sincerely delighted that she knows her own students so well, especially when correctly identifying the voice of a twin.
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Gill is still a newer teacher, but she has already been making a mark in the teaching world. She was an Edwin Parr Award nominee representing the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education recently. The award, recognizing excellence by a first-year teacher, is given out by the Alberta School Board Association.
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In a video for the award, Gill noted she is a kindergarten teacher at Medicine Hat's Ecole St. John Paul II School, where she teaches English and French.
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'I've always wanted to be a teacher,' Gill says in the video. 'I haven't thought two seconds about changing my career path at all. I've always wanted to be in the classroom, in front of kids, teaching them and learning more about myself, learning more about them and just making an environment where kids feel loved and included and they can be themselves 100 per cent of the time.'
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Gill makes a true difference in the school, nurturing francophone culture and global diversity, says the school's acting vice principal Edlyn Murphy.
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