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Ranbir Bains’ approach to teaching can be summed up in just a few words: “I try to be the teacher that I would want for my child.”
She teaches first grade at H. Allen Hight and has taught kindergarten and second grade as well during a lengthy career in which she has worked for Sacramento City Unified, Natomas Unified, and Washington Unified in West Sacramento. Indeed, she is a mother herself – of two young boys, a kindergartener and a 3-year-old.
A child’s early years lay the foundation for lifelong learning and Bains, Hight’s 2014 Teacher of the Year, said she is passionate about teaching reading skills. “I feel extremely lucky to be doing the work I have always wanted to do, and to make a difference in so many young lives.”
"I still love being a teacher after 16 years,” she said.
Bains once considered a career in law, but dropped the idea after volunteering in an elementary school while attending college. She immediately saw teaching as her calling. “I thought, ‘OK, well, my job should be fun. If you enjoy what you’re doing, you’re naturally going to excel at it or do well with it.’”
Even as a child, Bains relished classrooms. “I can still remember the scent of school,” she said in an essay. “I loved the smell of chalk, crayons and paste. I loved the colorful classrooms and wooden desks and tables. It was my favorite place to be.” In the 7th grade, she recalls, she was president of the “Chore Core” – a club to help teachers during recess and before and after school.
Principal Hervey Taylor, in Teacher of the Year nominating papers, said that Bains has “shown the remarkable ability to meet her students at their academic level and promote continuous growth so that each student show an increase in academic achievement. This was evidenced on her students’ recent report cards. As I reviewed each report card, I noticed that students were consistently showing improvement in their phonic skills, high frequency words, and overall reading skills.”
Bains uses various methods of teaching – music, dance, pair sharing, art, sit-on-the-carpet discussion – to vary the learning experience for first-graders and to make it fun. A classroom visitor recently found students ending their day by singing the song, “Let it Go,” from Disney’s hit animated film, “Frozen.”
In teaching the concept of a silent “e,” Bains’ young students learned a song titled “Super E.” They then made Superman- or Superwoman-type capes and decorated them with words containing a silent “e.” Effective? “They got it, just like that, versus if we had done worksheet after worksheet,” Bains said, smiling.
“Their progress is celebrated daily through high-fives, words of praise and visual charts where they earn stars next after their names,” Bains said. “I try to find something each student is good at so they can all have their time to shine. We celebrate everything from academic excellence on tests to tying shoelaces. Their work is proudly displayed around the classrooms and in the hallways and is constantly updated. My students know they are achieving.”
