Johannah Miesner CO ’05 GR ’08 named 2021 Madison Fellow for Indiana
After applying four times, Johannah Miesner’s persistence in applying for the James Madison Memorial Fellowship has paid off.
In May, Miesner was named the 2021 Indiana Fellow for the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation, a prestigious honor that recognizes promising and distinguished teachers to strengthen their knowledge of the origins and development of American constitutional government, to help them expose the nation’s secondary school students to accurate knowledge of the nation’s constitutional heritage.
“I don’t think I can put into words the excitement that I felt when I received the binder that told me that I was named the Indiana recipient this past April,” Miesner, who teaches seventh and eighth grade at Suburban Bethlehem Lutheran School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, said.
With the award, Miesner, who graduated from Concordia with her bachelor’s in elementary education in 2005 and master’s in literacy education in 2008, will receive $24,000 to earn a master of arts in American history and government and she will spend a month in Washington, D.C. next summer. In its 30th annual competition, the Foundation bestowed the honor to 57 fellows, representing each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the country’s island and trust territories.
Miesner, who recently started her 17th year teaching and her fourth at Suburban Bethlehem, is adjusting from teaching third grade to teaching seventh and eighth grades, so the ability to earn an additional master’s degree will go a long way in helping her adjust her teaching style and learn new skills.
“I believe that teaching revolves around always being willing to be a student, willing to step outside of your comfort zone and acknowledge that teachers don’t know or understand everything,” she said. “Being willing to continue to learn is something that I value highly. I think that making sure students understand the past and how it continues to shape is us such an important topic.”
From a young age, Miesner knew she wanted to be a teacher and teach elementary-aged students. During the second half of her student teaching semester at Concordia, she requested a first-third grade classroom but received a seventh and eighth-grade assignment. Little did she know, that would set the course for her teaching trajectory.
“I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Lawin where I intended to request a change,” Miesner said. “Instead, she said that they saw something inside of me that I hadn’t seen yet. I went through with it and loved it. I had already started interviewing at schools and took a third-grade job, but moved into fifth and sixth grade the next year and seventh and eighth grade two years later. I have taught middle school for the majority of my teaching career and cannot imagine teaching any other grade.”
The lessons and education Miesner received at Concordia changed her as a person, she said.
“My time as an undergraduate helped me figure out what kind of teacher I wanted to be by modeling the professors that I had, and by the ideas that I was exposed to prepare me to teach on day one of my first year,” she said. “My graduate studies completely changed the way that I viewed how I wanted to teach English language arts because of the research and methodology that I encountered.”
The best part of her Concordia experience, she said, was learning what it meant to be a teacher in a Lutheran school, what it meant to serve a congregation and what it means to integrate the Lutheran faith into all that she does.
“I have been blessed to get to teach the best students in the world throughout my years of teaching,” she said, “but I believe that because I believe that my calling has put me in those classrooms at that time for those kids.”
No matter which grade she is teaching, Miesner said she starts with the understanding that each of her students is a child of God, loved by their Creator, and wonderfully and uniquely made. She also prioritizes relationships and being genuine as a way to create success.
“As for how I teach, I change my style and approach each year to fit the class and subject, and to help each student in the best way possible,” she said. “I read a lot of professional development books and am always ready to look for ways to solve the problems that I encounter that block learning.”
