By ADAM ARMOUR

Staff Writer

All manner of flora and fauna -- some living, but mostly dead -- occupy Brenda Harbin's Itawamba Attendance Center seventh grade classroom.

Shelves are lined with stacks of animal skulls, bones, furs, giant pinecones, aquatic life and preserved insects and arachnid. If it's quiet enough, one can also hear the shuffling of a guinea pig in its cage, shifting through chips.

Her classroom is like a museum and Harbin the curator. If that's the case, however, the students themselves must surely be considered the primary contributors.

"Look at all this stuff," she said with a motion of her arm. "They bring me this stuff, everyday. Snake skins, tree limbs or bones," she said. "One student brought me a tarantula. I've got it up there on a shelf in a jar."

Harbin was recently named as Itawamba County's teacher of the year, an honor she's received three times in her 26 years of teaching science.

Harbin confessed to being both shocked and honored in her selection as teacher of the year, asserting that there are numerous teachers in Itawamba County more deserving of the award. When asked about the qualities that make a good teacher, Harbin suggested simple and pure optimism.

"You need to be someone who cares; someone who expects the best out of every child. After all, you get what you expect," Harbin said. "If you don't set your goals high, the students won't reach high.

"If you care about your students and want them to do their best, all the rest will just fall into place," she added.

Despite her modesty, one conversation with her -- preferably in her element, surrounded by the remnants of the natural world -- reveals why she's so popular. Harbin oozes an infectious love of all things science.

By and large, her students seem to have caught this bug.

"I let them see how much I love science. I always try to show my genuine enthusiasm for it when I'm around my students," she said. "I just love my job. Each day is different," she said, before admitting with mock hesitation, "And, to tell the truth, I really don't know if I can do anything else."

Pure dorkiness doesn't hurt, either.

"I'll admit, I am a nerd," she said. "Let's face it, most teachers were nerds during their teen years, college years or are nerds today. I'm not just one of these -- I'm all of the above."

Harbin asserted that good teachers are adaptable -- learning from both their students and surroundings and bringing new experiences to the classroom and sharing them with students.

"I have to continue to learn in order to teach them," Harbin said. "It's a circle. If I don't stay on top of things, then I won't be able to keep them on top of things. I have to go back and look at what new information I need to know so that I can tell them."

She offered an example.

"I can be walking down the street, and I can see any little thing ... something that other people don't even look at, like a crack in the sidewalk, and from that crack I'll think of something I can tell the children," she said.

Even in the classroom, Harbin's admitted to still learning.

"I'll think I have the answer to everything, and one of my students will find a different way to approach the problem," she said. "It's really a wonder ... Every group will come up with their own concept of what's going on."

Teaching, like her beloved science, keeps Harbin on her toes. She recognizes herself as a small part of a large and important world -- one she finds endlessly fascinating in its expansiveness, and a constant source of new and interesting knowledge.

When seen through the eyes of Brenda Harbin, how could science not be interesting?

"You can't help but believe in God when you look around at nature," she said with a grin. "The awakening and newness of it. And when you study science, you're not just cooped up in a room -- you're out in the world."

Adam Armour can be reached at 862-3141, by e-mailing adam.armour@itawamba360.com or by visiting his blog at itawamba360.com.