A TEACHER'S LIFE; OUTSTANDING EDUCATOR MAKES THE EXTRA EFFORT.

Byline: Yvette Cabrera Daily News Staff Writer

In the predawn hours one recent morning, Darshana Shah padded into her kitchen and flipped on the light, a lone beacon in her slumbering Tulsa Street neighborhood.

There, clad in pajamas at her kitchen table, the 46-year-old teacher combed through the newspaper looking for science and health stories to clip out for her sixth- and seventh-grade students at Portola Middle School in Tarzana. It was 5:30 a.m. - the start of a typical workday for Shah that would stretch 17 hours.

For Shah, teaching extends well beyond the walls of her classroom and begins well before the school bell rings. It is her life.

``I'm proud to be a teacher,'' said Shah, who knew since middle school that she would follow her mother and father into education. ``I feel like I'm learning a lot from the students. They're excited, I'm excited.''

Such dedication has not gone unrewarded: Shah has been selected as one of 11 state finalists for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching. She will find out in January if she is one of the two winners for California.

``The kids appreciate how motivated and excited she is about science, and it's infectious,'' said Kriste Mencher, Portola's magnet coordinator. ``And she is so willing to put in the extra time, whatever it is that is needed.''

Despite Shah's extra effort and recognition, she gets the same salary as her colleagues who have the same level of education and experience. The average salary for an LAUSD teacher is about $45,900, for 50 hours a week, according to the district and teachers' union.

Teachers do not receive merit pay because the union believes gauging exactly who deserved it would be difficult if not impossible.

``I'd love to be able to say teachers would be paid overtime for all the things they do on their own time. What is merit? Is merit putting in long, extra hours? Many teachers do that,'' said Day Higuchi, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

``If teachers are well supported and given the resources, they motivate themselves to put in all kinds of time,'' he said. ``By and large, teachers don't need an external incentive to work as hard as they can.''

``All they ask,'' he added, ``is that they get paid enough to hold their heads up in polite company.''

Shah said she is satisfied with her salary of about $50,000 and would rather spend her energy teaching than pushing the union to negotiate for merit raises as talks resume this week with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

``I don't have complaints,'' Shah said. ``Whatever I want I think I can have because I tailor my needs to my income.''

More than a job

As on most days, Shah left her home around 7 a.m. to give herself time to drop off her 16-year-old daughter at her high school.

She arrived at Portola Middle School by 7:30 a.m. - enough time to take her shopping bags full of science supplies to class before homeroom period. The school reimburses her for extra supplies, but sometimes she ends up spending her own money.

Always trying to make each student feel special, Shah decided this year to celebrate the birthdays of her 20 homeroom pupils. It's a small gesture, she insisted.

``They help me so much. When I have back-to-school night they help me set up, every morning if I need some help with setting up a lab, they help,'' Shah said. ``I wanted to do something for them.''

Eager students

As a magnet schoolteacher, Shah works with the LAUSD's brightest, most challenging students. The program serves 245 students who are taught an advanced curriculum tailored to a specialty, like science.

Shah teaches five science classes, four for highly gifted magnet students who must have an IQ of 145 or higher to qualify. Frog dissections are simply not enough to satisfy the intellectual cravings of Shah's students.

So she brings in fetal pigs, starfish and squid for dissections. Shah's students don't just draw DNA strands, they string together beads to create DNA molecule jewelry.

She allows her students to write science poetry instead of essays. They can create computer-generated science models or make life-size models. Instead of taking tests, Shah's students can create puppet shows, newscasts or science ``Jeopardy'' games.

``Whatever way they learn that's fine,'' Shah said. ``Some like paper and pencil tests, and some like (puppet shows). As long as they show me that they learned.''

Shah also created a DNA genetics program with the Thousand Oaks-based biotech company Amgen Inc. that gives students hands-on experience with genetic materials.

Teaching is like lighting candles, according to Shah.

``They learn on their own,'' Shah said. ``You just provide the experience. And the more experiences they have the more they learn.''

Jesse Cruz, one of Shah's sixth-graders, never liked science when he was in elementary school. That has changed with Shah.

``She will go over it a lot of times until you get it,'' said the 11-year-old. ``I came here not liking science. Now I like it.''

Shah's clipped pace continued even during lunch. Among the cabinets filled with specimens in glass jars and posters of animal and plant cells, Shah and other teachers heated up their lunches and sat at the students' desks to eat.

Math teacher Louise Dilger, co-chairwoman of the faculty association with Shah, began stapling dues notices in between bites. The minute Shah noticed this, she gulped down the last of her cantaloupe chunks.

``Eat, Louise,'' Shah prodded her friend. ``I'm almost done, so I can help.''

``Time, there is no other time,'' Shah murmured, as she stuffed her empty Tupperware into her lunch box and then reached across the desk and wrested away the dues notices from a protesting Dilger.

When her last class ended at 2:40 p.m., she briskly gathered up work sheets from the desks. Her last task - putting chairs on the desks - really is not her job, but she said, ``The custodians, they do so much.''

Even then, her school day was not over yet - not nearly. First she had to pick up jars of amoebas and parameciums for her students' experiments.

On the weekends, Shah might head to Costco and pack her blue Plymouth Voyager with tubs of peanuts and M&Ms so she can teach students about mixtures. And she may swing by garage sales in search of bargains for her classroom, like the aquarium she lugged to school so her students could observe fish.

Family tradition

Shah was born and raised in Baroda, India, to a family with strong ties to education - her mother was a teacher and her father was a principal.

Even as a middle school student, she recalls she had a knack for teaching science. When her eighth-grade science teacher would leave the lesson plan behind, Shah would teach.

``I could control the class - even the boys,'' Shah said.

She went on to earn her bachelor's and master's degrees in biology before she married. When she married Bharat Shah, 51, she intended to be a wife and mother.

``But he said, maybe you will get bored - how about teaching?'' Shah said. So Shah went back to earn her bachelor's degree in education at Maharaja Sayajirao University, in Baroda, where she had earned her previous degrees.

She began teaching at a private school in Baroda and had a daughter, Dipa, now a 20-year-old student at UCLA. Shah's other daughter, Anuja, is 16.

The family emigrated to the United States in the late 1970s, living off the salary of Shah's husband, a metallurgist, and moved to the San Fernando Valley in early 1980s.

It was here in the Valley that Shah decided to start teaching again. But she had doubts.

``I had never been in an American class. I had struggled with English as a child. It was overwhelming to me to be a mother, to run a household, cook and watch over my daughters,'' Shah said.

Today, Shah juggles work and family like she runs her classroom - with efficiency. She creates traditional Indian dinners almost every night and even manages to squeeze in hourlong walks with her husband after that.

``I think it just takes practice and attitude,'' Shah said. ``A lot of it is attitude - that you can do it.''

THE DAY

5:25 a.m. Darshana Shah wakes up.

5:30 She reads the newspaper, and starts the day by drinking two glasses of water and a cinnamon and honey mixture to aid digestion.

5:56 Gives herself a massage with lotus and olive oils to relieve stress and takes a shower.

6:08 Makes Indian tea.

6:15 Starts meditation exercises.

6:25 Packs lunch for self and her husband, Bharat. Prepares breakfast for her daughter. Cleans up kitchen.

6:45 Dresses for school.

6:55 Loads van with science supplies and leaves for school.

7:30 Arrives at school.

8 a.m. Homeroom class begins.

2:40 p.m. School lets out.

3:25 Picks up science specimens from the Science Materials Center in Van Nuys.

3:33 Leaves center to pick up daughter at high school.

4:15 Starts preparing dinner.

7:30 The Shahs sit down for dinner. She cleans up and washes dishes.

9 Shahs go for an hourlong walk.

10:10 p.m. Shah goes to bed.

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, box

PHOTO (1 -- color) Portola Magnet science teacher Darshana Shah, right, discusses homework with students at the Tarzana middle school.

(2 -- color) Darshana Shah of Granada Hills wipes the sleep from her eyes as she rises at 5:30 a.m. to start another day as an LAUSD teacher.

(3 -- color) Middle school science teacher Darshana Shah, who was born in India, takes time out from her hectic schedule to soothe her soul with prayer.

(4 -- 6 -- color) Portola Middle School teacher Darshana Shah leads her homeroom students in the pledge of allegiance, above left. Above, she loads her van with school supplies before heading out from her Granada Hills home. At left, her husband, Bharat, chats with her as she clears the dinner table.

(7 -- color) Darshana Shah

Portola Middle School Science teacher

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News

Box: The day (see text)