On the afternoon before he started his first teaching job, my husband Steve, called me frantic telling me there was something really important for his classroom that he needed me to go to the novelty store and find. What was this desperately needed classroom supply? A rubber chicken and some fake black fur. When I questioned why this was so necessary he responded, “Every classroom needs a rubber chicken.” That night, he carefully cut the black fur into sideburns and glued them onto the sides of the rubber chicken and Elvis the Rubber chicken was born.
For the past 14 years, Elvis and more importantly, Steve’s great sense of humor, have been a staple of the education of the delighted children he has have the privilege of teaching. During the first five years that Steve taught at Quail Hollow in Jordan School District, Elvis traveled extensively. He had his own journal that students signed up to take home every night and journal his evening. He went on trips with Steve’s students and our family all over Utah. The bulletin board of Elvis sightings grew constantly. We even have a picture of Elvis in a small southern Utah town chained to the rock they used as a jail years and years ago, hence the title under the picture that made that little side trip worthwhile– Jail House Rock.
Elvis has evolved over time as a teaching aid just as Steve has evolved as a teacher. Elvis’ sideburns are no longer glued on, now they are drawn on with a permanent marker. Elvis the rubber chicken has his own webpage and has had numerous books written about him by Mr. Sagers’ students. Steve now is proud to call Nibley Park School in Salt Lake District his school home and is one of their most beloved teachers. His sixth graders loved their weekly spelling tests where they got to suggest the topic and he had to make up sentences using their spelling words about the chosen topic. Generally, its rare to hear chuckles during tests, but it happened weekly in Mr. Sagers class as some of those sentences were quite a stretch. Now he is one of the two great eighth grade teachers at Nibley Park as they expanded to become a kindergarten through eighth grade school. He enjoys teaching social studies to both the seventh and eighth graders as well as Algebra.
For all the fun and humor in his classroom, Steve takes the importance of educating young people seriously and is known to challenge them to push themselves and try harder. He enjoys sending math homework home with the challenge for students to show their parents what they’ve learned and see if the parents can do the same math. The kids love being able to stump their parents. Many former students have come back during their junior high years to thank him for teaching them how to understand math, it made their Algebra classes much easier.
In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Steve is a great dad to our four children. I highly recommend my husband, Steve Sagers, for KSL’s Teacher Feature.
For all the fun and humor in his classroom, Steve takes the importance of educating young people seriously and is known to challenge them to push themselves and try harder. He enjoys sending math homework home with the challenge for students to show their parents what they’ve learned and see if the parents can do the same math. The kids love being able to stump their parents. Many students have come back during their junior high years to thank him for teaching them how to understand math, it made their Algebra classes much easier.
In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Steve is a great dad to our four children. I highly recommend my husband, Steve Sagers, for KSL’s Teacher Feature.
– Terumi Sagers