Meet Heather Wiselogle, M. Ed – The Teacher at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital

“Teacher effectiveness is the strongest school-related determinant of student success…” 1

Meet Heather Wiselogle, the teacher at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital. After graduating with a B.S. in Elementary Education and an M.S. in Education, Heather worked as an elementary school teacher for 15 years. In November of 2017, Sandy Smith, the former teacher at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, approached Heather with the idea of working at a hospital. With an underlying interest in the medical field, Heather quickly accepted the position and began working as the certified teacher at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital.

Over the past year and a half Heather has taken on a great deal of responsibilities at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent. She describes herself as “wearing three hats: teacher, liaison, and advocate.” Her largest role is working as the teacher, in which she sees patients ranging from kindergarten to college. In a way, she is considered a ‘homebound’ teacher for students receiving long-term medical treatment.

Heather also spends a large portion of her time as the liaison between patients and school faculty. This allows her to collect homework from the school, and, in many cases, create a personalized educational path for the student. Her goal is to encourage each patient to work on schoolwork for at least one hour every day. To see this through, Heather and her volunteers visit patients in the oncology clinic, at bedside in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and hold an open classroom session every afternoon.

Heather knows that school is an important part of every child’s life regardless of the struggles they may face and that is why she spends time building relationships with patients through trust and communication. In her own words, “I enjoy bringing a sense of normalcy to a hospital setting.” Heather has truly found her passion, and she’s excited to continue growing the school program at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital.

To learn more about volunteer opportunities at St. Vincent visit https://www.stvincent.org/How-to-Give/Volunteer-Opportunities

References
1National Forum on Education Statistics (2009). Every school day counts. The forum guide to collecting and using attendance data. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009804

 
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