Denver Home Living from Your Colorado Home Group Fall 2018 | Page 27

I
KATHY ZOOK
IS AN INSPIRATION TO STUDENTS AND COLLEAGUES ALIKE
f you happen to see a
grown woman walking
through Denver
International Airport
carrying a fully dressed
cheetah stuffed animal with
its own passport, there’s no
need to worry about the
woman’s sanity. Chances are
you’ve bumped into Kathy
Zook, a teacher of gifted and
talented third-, fourth- and
fifth-graders at Hodgkins
Elementary just north of
downtown Denver—or one
of her colleagues—taking
the class mascot on
another adventure.
With a passport chock
full of country stamps,
the stuffed animal—
known as Chester
the Cheetah—has
been to destinations
most of Zook’s
underprivileged
students—83 percent of
whom qualify for free
or reduced lunch—can
only dream about.
Zook uses Chester—and the
journals and videos he keeps
(with her help!)—to widen her
students’ horizons and expose
them to places and cultures well
beyond their Denver classroom.
When Zook is not busy with
Chester, she can often be found
at RAFT Colorado (short for
Resource Area for Teaching, an
organization profiled on page 28
of this issue), where she works to
develop challenging hands-on
projects for her students on a
wide range of educational topics,
including circuitry, strawberry
DNA, and color spectrums of
light, to name just a few. When
her students finish one of these
projects, Zook challenges them
to go home and teach their
parents the same lesson they
have learned.
As an avid supporter and
promoter of RAFT—which
develops creative, hands-
on learning tools for the
classroom—Zook has a unique
eye for recognizing the many
alternative uses for unusual
items dona