A+ Teacher: Heidi Gaulding aims to have her students ‘explore science through engaging inquiry and hands-on learning’

When Heidi Gaulding was a child, she never dreamed she’d be happily teaching fifth and sixth grade students about science in a tiny town with a population just over 700. But that’s exactly where her life has led, and she says she couldn’t be happier. 

“My mom started her teaching career when she was young, so that is all I ever remember her doing. I remember her spending countless hours planning lessons, setting up science labs, grading papers, writing curriculum… and the list goes on,” Heidi told the Times. “[It’s] why I always thought, and might have said it a time or two, ‘I am never going to be a teacher. No way!’”

Now, a standout educator at Gainesville Elementary School, Heidi is making a big impact in the classroom. 

“She’s an extremely hands-on teacher,” said Erin Swofford, Gainesville Elementary principal. “She is constantly doing activities and lessons that require hands-on learning that promote retention of the skills and standards being addressed… She truly enjoys teaching, and it is evident by how she presents material to her students! I learn something every time I am in her room.”

Gainesville superintendent Justin Gilmore agrees.

“Heidi is a superstar science teacher. She incorporates STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math] activities often, writes grants for new resources and supports the growth and success of all students.”

A love for kids and science that led to teaching

Heidi grew up in Quincy, Illinois, a city with a population of almost 50,000 people. 

“At a young age I would often play ‘teacher’ at home, but if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up? Well, that was easy,” she said. “I wanted to be a babysitter.”

Heidi said she has always had a fondness for working with children, but witnessing the long and dedicated hours that her mother put in as a teacher made her veer away from that dream as a teen. 

She graduated from Quincy Senior High School in 2000 and received a volleyball scholarship to Lindenwood University in St. Charles. She entered college with a desire to major in biology and eventually enter a career in that discipline.

“…but as I sat in one of my classes, I realized that if I were going to work in a laboratory some day, then I wouldn’t spend my days being around kids,” Heidi said. “It hit me in that moment… if I become a science teacher then I could work in a ‘lab’ and be around kids.”

Defying her youthful aversion to teaching, Heidi decided to change her major and shift her career path to become a teacher. She shared the plans to change her major from biology to education, and her family was surprised but slightly hesitant.   

“I clearly remember my mom trying to talk me out of it at first, but she knew, especially after the hours and hours she had watched me playing ‘teacher’ as a kid, that there was no better career for me than to become a teacher.”

A college romance that blossomed into a beautiful family

While attending college, Heidi crossed paths with Josh Gaulding, a man who’d grown up in Thornfield and was also attending college at Lindenwood on a sports scholarship.

Josh graduated from college in 2003 and relocated to Springfield where he accepted a job with Redneck Trailer Supply.

Heidi continued her education, graduating a year later with a bachelor’s degree and accepting her first teaching position at Wentzville School District as a seventh grade science teacher. She stayed in the St. Louis area for the position. 

It was during that year as a first-year teacher that Heidi and Josh were engaged. After the school year ended, she relocated to Springfield to be closer to her fiancée.  

The couple were married in June 2006, and they purchased their first home in Nixa. 

Heidi applied at several schools in the Springfield area and was offered a position as the seventh grade math teacher at Jarrett Middle School in Springfield. She transitioned to sixth grade math at the school the following year and taught that subject for five years. She also served as the seventh and eighth grade volleyball coach and the district math curriculum facilitator for the middle school. 

Despite her busy schedule, she somehow found time to go back to school and earn a master’s degree in education administration, graduating from the program in 2008.

In 2009, Josh and Heidi welcomed their first child into the world, a sweet boy named Aden. 

Heidi continued to work for the Springfield School District until 2011, when she and Josh had another baby, a little girl they named Avery. 

“At birth Avery had some major health complications. I was able to take off the remainder of that school year to care for her. With the help of the Lord, we decided that rather than returning to teaching, that I could stay home to raise our two young children for the next several years,” Heidi explained. 

When Aden entered kindergarten in Nixa a few years later, she knew that meant Avery would follow in a couple years. She and Josh began planning for the future, and Heidi decided she’d like to resume a career in education.  

Praying for - and finding - a home in Ozark County

Although the family enjoyed their life in Nixa, they decided they’d prefer a slower pace and the rural setting of somewhere in the country. 

“We had a desire to move to Thornfield, where Josh grew up. He was ready to be back on the farm, but we really didn’t know how to make it all work. It truly seemed impossible,” Heidi said. “We began praying about it, and very quickly what seemed impossible became a reality.”

In 2016, Josh accepted a job as a loan officer at Century Bank of the Ozarks in Gainesville and Heidi accepted a job as a teacher at Gainesville School District. The couple purchased a home in Thornfield, remodeled it and moved in with their two children. 

Now, seven years later, the couple have settled into their positions and home, and life is good. Aden is a seventh grader at Gainesville Junior High School, and Avery is in fifth grade with Heidi at Gainesville Elementary. 

Two role model teachers

Heidi says there were two impactful teachers she had during her school years who have served as role models for her own teaching style.

“When I think back to my experiences as a child in school, the thing that stands out most are two of my favorite teachers. My fourth grade teacher was humorous, energetic and always made learning fun. My ninth grade science teacher, who just so happened to be my mom, taught science in an engaging way that stuck with me,” Heidi said. 

Having the first-hand experience of being a student truly engaged and looking forward to learning in her classes by energetic, creative and caring teachers, Heidi knew that she aspired to find that same engaging style in her own classroom.  

“I want to be the kind of teacher that helps students find fun in learning and actually explore science through engaging inquiry and hands-on learning. It is one thing to read about science in a textbook, but you open a whole new world to kids when they can see it, touch it, manipulate it and explore it themselves… it just creates so much more power in the learning process,” she said. “I don’t want my students to walk into my classroom knowing or expecting what we will be doing. When you create a classroom environment where the students don’t expect the same thing everyday - that’s when students become interested in learning. I love hearing students walk through the door asking, ‘what are we doing in science today?’”

Engaging students in fun, science-building projects

Heidi says she enjoys coming up with engaging and fun project ideas. Some of her students’ favorite lessons and projects include:

• taping toilet paper rolls to the hallway walls to create marble runs 

• “egg drop,” a project where students build a contraption from recycled materials to protect a raw egg from a high fall

• building rollercoasters out of cardstock to analyze kinetic and potential energy

• Rube Goldberg devices, in which students join three or more simple machines making a complex machine that performs a specific task

• building 3D cell models

• creating water filters to test various materials and their filtration capabilities 

• balloon rockets fueled by seltzer tablets

• catapults with various types of materials

• solar ovens that are used to cook s’mores

• building “junk-a-cules,” molecules built out of junk

• separating various types of mixtures using a variety of materials

Rewarding and challenging aspects of the job

Heidi says one of the most rewarding elements of teaching is when a child finds a desire to learn or realizes that they are capable of learning. 

“There is great joy in a child leaving my classroom talking about the activity we did or how they can’t wait for the next part of the activity tomorrow. It confirms that the time and energy put into designing the lesson made it completely worthwhile,” she said. “I love seeing that look on a child’s face when the light bulb comes on, when they make the connection from what they are learning and can then apply it somewhere else.”

Heidi says during the class’s unit on matter, students often catch her in the cafeteria to explain how the condensation forms on the outside of their milk carton or points out how when they cut a piece of their pizza it only is a physical change rather than a chemical change.

One of the biggest challenges Heidi faces is students’ interest in screen-based entertainment. 

“It’s hard to compete with video games and technology. Kids today don’t have as great of a desire to learn nor do they find the importance in it. They would much rather sit in front of a screen playing video games rather than getting outside to explore or building things with their hands. We have to work harder to engage students and make learning more meaningful and applicable.”

But Heidi says she’s up for the challenge, and her interesting and engaging lessons are helping to keep students interested in their school work.

The proof often comes from the mouths of the students in her classroom. Heidi says that one of her most rewarding moments came from a student who had taken her classes for the last two years, first as a fifth grade student and then as a sixth grader.  

“At the end of the school year she brought me a folder that she had been working on at home. In my science class, we make a folder to store some of our interactive notes and labs. During the two years that she had me, she would go home and recreate almost every lesson we had done in class. She made her own interactive notebook as a collection of all that she’d learned in my class,” Heidi said. “When she brought that book to school to share with me, I had tears of joy - this was the reminder, at the end of a school year, that showed me why I love what I am doing.”