Friday, March 6, 2009

The Golden Apple Award- Excellence in Teaching


Ask almost anyone who their favorite teacher was, and they'll remember. They will most likely remember the time, effort and love that person invested in their education. I remember hearing something in an interview of a famous athlete that earned millions of dollars every year. He said some of the most influential people to him were teachers in school growing up. One person who I know is making differences in young people's lives is my mom.


My mom has been a middle school science teacher for about 15 years. She really does an amazing job teaching with all kinds of fun activities. Some of the things that stand out in my mind are: dissecting hearts, having a greenhouse that the kids work in, having an invention competition, raising trout from eggs then releasing them into the wild, cleaning up a local lake and doing water testing, launching rockets, the list goes on and on.In addition to her teaching, she has an amazing classroom filled with animals of every sort, jobs the kids all have to participate in, a weather monitoring station, and they even have palm pilots to use for research under teacher supervision! While she is very humble and would never tell you how awesome she is (because she doesn't realize it), her peers and students would definitely report that she is great.


Recently, she was selected to receive a prestigious award for excellence in teaching. It's called The Golden Apple Award. "The Golden Apple Foundation of New Mexico (Golden Apple) is a nonprofit organization with a mission for recognizing excellent teachers and improving the quality of teaching. Each year Golden Apple recognizes seven teachers from around New Mexico with the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching. "


There was a pretty intense process in which the award winners were selected. They had to submit portfolios, their students, peers, student parents and administration were all interviewed, they had observers in their classrooms during a normal school day, and then they had an interview themselves.


My mom is the first person in her school to win this award, and I just wanted to say Congratulations! I'm so very proud to have such a great example as a mom. It's been a good lesson for me to see the hard work she puts into making someone else's life more meaningful through education.I can only hope my children will have teachers like her as they go through school! Way to go Mom!!!!

7 comments:

Bonnie said...

That's awesome! I can tell that you are very proud and you have every right to be! Tell her congrats!

Bart said...

Wow! Congratulations to your mom! Thanks for sharing her great success!

Justin said...

That's a lot to live up to. You have a long way to go:)

chelon:) said...

that's awesome!! way to go sara's mom :) now we know where you get it sara! xoxo

Tammy said...

I wish she were here teaching S. Your mom is awesome. I see where you get your Smart gene from.

Jeannie said...

That sounds like a very special honor! Congratulations!!

meleah said...

Wow!!! That's awesome!! She sounds like an awesome teacher!!! Tell her congratulations!