In writing “boot camps,” Krystal Contreras (TX '18)’s fourth-graders fix injured “soldiers” (sentences) with punctuation and recite march-style chants about the writing process. “Learning to write is like going to the Army,” Krystal tells her students. “We are going to exercise our brains to get them into shape.”
Brian Quinn (MD ’18) takes every opportunity to join his students on the basketball court, football field or baseball diamond. “You can teach children a lot while playing,” he says. “They don’t even realize they are learning at the same time.”
Chad Downs (MI ’18) is passing the torch to the next generation: His new Future of Education Scholarship, funded by his Milken Educator Award prize, goes to a high school senior in his hometown who plans to teach.
Special education teacher Therese Shain (MO ’18) loves working with elementary students because their skills grow in leaps and bounds: “With the right encouragement and support, they get so excited about their learning.”
Sarah Compton (WI ’18) values the weekly professional development time she and her colleagues have built into their schedules: “I walk away feeling that I can immediately improve my classroom instruction as a result.”
Years in the classroom and as an instructional coach reinforced for Principal Rachel Tommelleo (DC ’18) the tenets she now lives by: the importance of working with urgency, listening to her gut, and putting students’ needs first.
Several times a year, Nicole Silva (NJ ’18) takes her third-graders to meet with local veterans: “Students need to know about our veterans and patriots, and why we have the liberties and rights that we do.”
Fifth-grade science and math teacher Jennifer Albert (FL ’18) leads her grade-level team and shares a special bond with her colleagues: “Our relationship motivates the whole team to work hard for each other and our students.”
After a decade working in real estate, with an infant and a toddler at home, Heather Hurt (AL ’18) went back to school to begin her career as an educator. She knows it was the right move: “Teaching is not just a job—it is my passion.”
Jennifer Reaves (WV ’18), the technology integration specialist at Morgantown’s Mylan Park Elementary, gets inspired by her colleagues: “I am pushed and motivated by what they are doing in their classrooms—and I’m innovating right alongside them.”
