The 2010 Kansas Teacher of the Year is...

All previous Kansas Teachers of the Year in attendance pose for a picture with Karen Tritt, 2010 KTOY (sitting front and center)

Karen Tritt!!!! Karen is a Spanish teacher at Shawnee Mission West High School and will represent teachers across our state for the next year. The journey she, and the 2010 KTOY Team, begins today is life-changing in so many ways. As my team met with the "new" team, I was overcome with emotion. The opportunities, experiences, and friendships that I have had the past year is hard to put into words. Trying to communicate what the year will be like for them was difficult.

What I am feeling can best be summed up by the lyrics to the song "For Good" (from the musical Wicked):

(Elphaba) I'm limited
Just look at me - I'm limited
And just look at you
You can do all I couldn't do,
So now it's up to you
For both of us - now it's up to you...

(Glinda) I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

(Elphaba) It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good.



TA-DAAAA....The 2009 KTOY Team saying Goodbye!
We have all been "changed for the better."