Yes, the air has chilled.
The moon is new.
And it's January!
That can only mean one thing: it's teacher award season. The biggest awards available to nominated teachers in our area have to be the Golden Apple Awards, hosted by the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce. Our school has had eight recipients of this award in the past, including Yours Truly, the first Cecil Floydian to earn the recognition (way back in 2004). Another three Golden Apple recipients have also taught at Cecil Floyd, either before or after they earned the award. Nominations are open now for the Golden Apple Awards in Joplin. To nominate a deserving educator, a form must be completed, and two letters must be written - one from a student (past or present) and another from that student's parent. As a past recipient, I will never be eligible for future nomination.
The moon is new.
And it's January!
That can only mean one thing: it's teacher award season. The biggest awards available to nominated teachers in our area have to be the Golden Apple Awards, hosted by the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce. Our school has had eight recipients of this award in the past, including Yours Truly, the first Cecil Floydian to earn the recognition (way back in 2004). Another three Golden Apple recipients have also taught at Cecil Floyd, either before or after they earned the award. Nominations are open now for the Golden Apple Awards in Joplin. To nominate a deserving educator, a form must be completed, and two letters must be written - one from a student (past or present) and another from that student's parent. As a past recipient, I will never be eligible for future nomination.
We'll hear about the second award soon after the Golden Apples have been distributed to 2021's deserving educators. The second is awarded internally in the school district. It is that of Teacher of the Year. As luck would have it, I was Joplin's Teacher of the Year in 2005, and I went on to the state level. Administrators set the criteria for this recognition, and these days, the T.O.Y. is selected to go up against others in our region before advancing to the state and national levels. It was a lot of work to get through all of the required paperwork and writing for this. I remember spending many hours in the summer of '05, tweaking my application, video, and essay for the state.
A third recognition - this one from the Joplin Globe, our local newspaper - is often overlooked. It is called the H.O.O.T award, H.O.O.T. standing for Honoring Our Outstanding Teachers. The prize is a small one, sponsored by Crowder College, but the acknowledgment also appears in the Newspapers in Education insert in a Wednesday edition of the paper.
Finally, there is this: the National History Teacher of the Year award, from Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the History Channel. The award information explains that this should be a teacher of American History (K-12). This is, first, a state award, garnering the recipient a $1,000 prize at a state-level ceremony. A collection of resources is also awarded to the teacher's school library. The following fall, a review of all submitted materials (work completed by the nominee) is conducted for the national teacher of the year award. Historians, former winners, and master educators select who will receive the final $10,000 award at a national ceremony. The teacher is even allowed to invite two students along.
Undoubtedly, other awards are out there for teachers if you know where to look for them. If you can think of any eligible educators you believe go above and beyond to connect the dots for his/her students, do that teacher a favor and nominate them. They may not be Hollywood stars, and they may not be Grammy-worthy, but some of them might be worthy of a little bit of glitter for their creative, personal methods and for the connections they make with and for their students.
Undoubtedly, other awards are out there for teachers if you know where to look for them. If you can think of any eligible educators you believe go above and beyond to connect the dots for his/her students, do that teacher a favor and nominate them. They may not be Hollywood stars, and they may not be Grammy-worthy, but some of them might be worthy of a little bit of glitter for their creative, personal methods and for the connections they make with and for their students.
Have you found any other awards for educators?
If so, send them to me so I can review them and possibly post them on this site for others.
If so, send them to me so I can review them and possibly post them on this site for others.
