Vicki Stroud Gonterman, the international studies teacher at the Little Rock School District's Gibbs Elementary School, greeted a class of second-graders in Japanese.
"Hello. How are you?" she said in the foreign tongue, and then asked the standing children to be seated after they responded to her, also in Japanese.
Easy enough. The 37-year teacher picked up some Japanese when she was an exchange teacher in Sapporo, Japan, in 1991, and a little German as an exchange teacher in 1987 in Bremen in what was then West Germany. She's also been to China and Mexico and to 49 of the 50 U.S. states.
Gonterman greets the other classes at Gibbs -- she teaches in them all -- in other foreign languages. There's Mandarin, for example, and Portuguese, and Spanish, too. Each classroom at Gibbs -- an international studies and foreign languages-themed magnet school for prekindergarten through fifth grades -- represents a nation of the world.
"I have to make sure I'm speaking the correct language for the country," she said. "Sometimes I have to stop and think, 'This is Saudi Arabia -- Arabic.' Thirty minutes later I might be in the Brazil room, so I have to switch to Portuguese. It keeps me on my toes."
In the fifth-grade classroom that is designated as the United Kingdom, British English is used.
"They call me Lady Gonterman in there," she said.
In December, the National Council for the Social Studies will be calling Gonterman, 60, its 2016 Outstanding Elementary Social Studies Teacher of the Year at the organization's convention in Washington, D.C.
Gonterman is the first Arkansas recipient in the 32-year history of the award, said Ana Post, the organization's director of external relations and council communications.
Post said the council's selection committee concluded that "Gonterman is an experienced, innovative and passionate teacher who contributed to effective student learning of all aspects of social studies through a global studies course that she teaches at all grade levels in her school, and that her teaching exemplifies the ways in which social studies should be integrated in elementary classrooms."
The award winner receives $2,500 as well as funds to attend the annual conference, where she will serve on the Social Studies Teacher of the Year panel.
Gonterman's role as the international studies specialist goes beyond classroom labels and greetings.
In the classrooms, Gonterman focuses on teaching pupils about cultures, geography and government.
"I start with American government," she said, so pupils have a basis for comparison when other countries are presented.
"I do love teaching about the other countries," she said.
She is the sponsor of the Gibbs Mini United Nations, which is the school's version of a student council. That council -- with "ambassadors," "secretary-general" and "deputy secretary" -- is the driving force behind the annual Peace Day, World Food Day Cereal Drive, Gibbs Giving Tree, and the Earth Day Parade events at the school. She also orchestrates the school's Sept. 11, 2001, observation that includes writing thank-you letters to emergency responders, as well as the fourth- and fifth-grade Geography Bee, which includes "giving the winner a huge trophy like high school athletes win."
Gonterman was instrumental in the school's Life Interrupted project in the early 2000s, which was a multifaceted study of the internment of Japanese-Americans in Arkansas camps during World War II. The school project was done in conjunction with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.
Most recently, Gonterman has researched and written a children's book -- yet to be published -- about Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, whom the school is named after.
"It's a way that I can teach about slavery, important African-Americans, the Civil War, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments -- so many things through the life of one man," she said. "And it is personal for the children."
In 1874, Gibbs was the first black man to be elected city court judge anywhere in the nation, and it happened in Little Rock, Gonterman said. She successfully nominated Gibbs to be included this year in the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.
Gonterman has been at the school at West 16th and South Cross streets for 30 years -- starting with the inception of its magnet program and as a framer of the school's enhanced educational program.
The school features full-time German, Spanish and French-language teachers as well as an international specialist on the faculty. The magnet program's original purpose was to attract pupils from across all of Pulaski County to a campus that was otherwise difficult to desegregate. The interdistrict aspect of the school and five other magnet programs in Little Rock is winding down as the result of a 2014 settlement in a long-running federal school desegregation lawsuit.
Walter Nunn, director emeritus of Global Ties Arkansas, called Gonterman "the academic and spiritual core" of Gibbs because of her focus on children's welfare, her understanding of international subject matter, her emphasis on academic content, her enthusiasm and her efforts to find international connections in central Arkansas and draw them into the school.
"She has made Gibbs a regular stop every year for about a dozen up-and-coming [international] leaders we receive through the State Department," Nunn said. "Her approach is to find out what countries are coming and set students to studying them in advance, including the phrase 'Welcome to Gibbs' in their native language. The visitors are pleasantly surprised to be peppered with sophisticated questions about their countries and be greeted in their native language, even Arabic and Russian. This face-to-face approach fires up the global interests of students, many of whom proceed to Dunbar [Middle School] and Central [High School] to continue their international studies."
Melissa James, a substitute teacher and mother of two daughters taught by Gonterman, said Gonterman is good at sharing her knowledge of other countries and cultures in ways that Gibbs' pupils can relate to. James told of Gonterman's presentation on clothing worn by women in Middle Eastern countries and how the students were interested and asked many questions.
Gonterman is a third-generation schoolteacher, following her father and grandfather in the profession. She is married to teacher Chris Gonterman, who works at Hall High School.
She graduated in 1974 as valedictorian from Bryant High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in education with social studies certification from UALR in 1980. She returned to that Little Rock campus for a master's degree in education with an emphasis in global studies and American history in 1992.
Gonterman has previously received national recognition as Teacher of the Year from three international organizations: National Peace Corps Association, United States-Japan Foundation, and Global Ties U.S., formerly the National Council for International Visitors.
"I hope I have given children a window to the world -- a global perspective that will make them competitive in the workplace and a good citizen," Gonterman said.
Metro on 10/16/2016