By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
For her innovative teaching project, Anna Leigh Sargent was awarded $5,000 in a national competition. Representatives from FACTS, an educational services company, presented her with a check Tuesday.
She also will be going on an all-expense paid trip to Salt Lake City, Utah this summer. There she will present her winning project to other teachers from around the country.
Sargent was caught off guard when she won the national contest.
“I was flabbergasted when I got the e-mail,” Sargent shared. “I wasn’t sure I had won.”
Not only was she awarded, but also her school, Holy Family Catholic school (HFCS) in Galveston, was presented with a check for $1,000.
“We are very lucky to have her here,” Principal Jeanna Porter said. “She is an amazing teacher who is very student-focused, and her students are highly engaged and love to learn.”
Sargent teaches third grade at HFCS, and though she doesn’t think there is anything extraordinary about her work, after taking one look at her video presentation, I know she is an extraordinary teacher.
In August 2024, Sargent was faced with the task of teaching her students concepts such as supply and demand, supply chain and, overall, how to run a business. Rather than having her students read about the concepts and memorize vocabulary, Sargent engaged her students in entrepreneurship.
She grouped her students in pairs and asked each pair to come up with an item to produce and then sell at the school’s fall festival. All materials used to produce the goods would need to be purchased, and the funds had to be procured.
The need to fund the classroom entrepreneurship project required soliciting investors. The students weren’t the only ones for whom this project meant soliciting investors for the first time.
“I had to learn how investors work,” Sargent said.
Parents and other friends of the school visited the school library, where the students presented their business plans, which they had written under the guidance of their teacher/consultant.
Contracts were signed with the investors, and about $300 was invested.
One little hitch for the investors was that they would not receive a return on their money. As Sargent explained, it would have been a bit of an accounting nightmare had the investors been given back what they had invested because of the non-profit status of the school, so they agreed their funds could either go to the school or the designated charity, the Pregnancy Help Center of Galveston.
The students displayed their products — seashell necklaces, painted candles, comic strips, painted posters, beaded necklaces, painted flowerpots, and bookmarks — to sell at the school’s fall festival. What didn’t sell at the festival was sold at pop-up events, Sargent reported.
Through its entrepreneurship, the class raised just over $700 for the Pregnancy Help Center of Galveston.
Experiential learning is a yearlong practice for Sargent. She shared that her students write and sometimes perform short plays as a method for learning how to write dialogue.
Sargent believes students learn best when they engage in true-to-life scenarios.
“I firmly believe that learning has to be connected to the real world in order for kids to absorb it,” Sargent said. “I’m able to nurture a love of learning by helping them relate what they learn in the classroom to their lives.” If you would like a glimpse at the energetic and extortionary teaching style of Anna Leigh Sargent, you can find her contest submission video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBjTB06U-CU.
