Bentley encourages students to push themselves

ALBANY, Ga. — Selina Bentley’s students appear happy and content. They smile easily and laugh as well.

The care and support the high school students received from Bentley is evident in her actions and words.

Bentley, 50, is one of eight finalists vying for the Dougherty County School System’s 25th annual Teacher of the Year award. The banquet, which also honors retiring educators, will be held at 6 p.m. May 11 at Lamar Reese Magnet School of the Arts.

Bentley, who graduated from Dougherty High in 1977, has taught for 28 years, including 12 years in the DCSS. Besides being a music teacher, she also teaches a yearbook class along with Barbara Jack, who won the school system’s teacher of the year honor for the 2005-06 school year.

“It’s in my blood,” Bentley said of teaching. “Since the second grade (when I was) at Radium (Springs) Elementary School in Albany, I knew I wanted to be a music teacher,” she said.

“I think it’s a reflection of how I was taught in the Dougherty County School System in the ’70s. I always did best with teachers I could trust and had a sense of integrity.”

Evan Nelson, a junior at Westover, said he appreciates Bentley’s enthusiasm and how she always brings in new music for her students to learn.

“She always goes the extra effort to make sure we perform,” said Nelson. “At every festival I’ve been with her we’ve made superior (rating) and that’s one of the things I like about her. She always has time to spend with us. She’s always here before and after school for us. She knows a lot about music and she can answer any question about it or about school and life. She just really cares about all her students. That’s one of her best traits.”

Another junior, Jennifer John, described Bentley as “fun, loyal, determined and a free spirit.”

“She’s hardworking and she truly loves her students as her own,” John said.

Bentley’s desire to look after her students comes from her belief that, “students don’t care how much you know, until they know you care.”

“So many come out of such difficult situations in their lives they need a safe place where they can be themselves in a comfort zone,” she said. “Music gives that to them. Although it’s not an academic class, the lessons they learn of tenacity and sticking with something until you get it pays off in other areas — memorization, reading and math.

“They also do better with SATs. Music is a skill that 10 years from now I can find one of my students still using like singing in church, community choirs, community theaters and installing the love of music into their children. I want to create life-long learners at the same time get along without me.”

For 16 of the last 17 years, Bentley has been an adjudicator and interviewer for the statewide Governor’s Honors Program Music auditions and interviews. During her career, she has had three students selected to the Governor’s Honors Program.

However, these achievements and others like them mean little to Bentley. One of her greatest joys was teaching a ninth-grade student in the chorus who was blind. The student asked Bentley if she could help her to sight read music. After experimenting throughout the first semester she had a breakthrough idea with another student.

“I have her sitting next to another student who is a good sight reader and we devised a system of placing two fingers together on seven different places on her left arm starting at her hand and going to her shoulder,” she wrote in her teacher of the year application.

“Each place represents a different pitch and the amount of time her arm is touched is the duration of the note. To my joy and to the choir’s, she is now sight reading and is becoming very efficient at it. The look on her face and the excitement of the class the first time we tried this and it worked was a sight, sound and feeling I will never forget.”