Category Archives: Education

Peggy Bennett: Special Ed teacher and Minnesota politician

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Former Special Education teacher Peggy Bennett also serves as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives.

Many excellent classroom teachers also serve as successful politicians. One of these is Peggy Bennett, a Special Education teacher who is currently in office as a member of the House of Representatives for Minnesota.

Peggy was born July 3, 1958. She grew up in White Bear Lake, Ramsey County, Minnesota. As a young girl, she attended Westonka High School in Mound, Minnesota. Following her high school graduation, she enrolled in Crown College in St. Bonifacius, Minnesota. There she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Education in 1980. She earned a Master’s degree in Special Education from St. Cloud State University in 1981.

After she earned her degrees, Peggy accepted a position as a Special Education teacher in Albert Lea in 1981. She taught a K-1 transition class for Special Education and regular education students for seven years before becoming a first grade teacher. In 2011, Peggy garnered the Albert Lea Area Teacher of the Year award. By the time she retired in 2015, her career as an educator spanned a total of 33 years.

While in the classroom, Peggy often brought her dog, Colter, to school. The shepherd pup helped her teach first grade students how to read. Colter was even featured on an episode of Fox and Friends in June 2014.

In 2018, the talented educator was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives on the Republican ticket to represent District 27A. Representative Bennett was first elected in 2014, earning 53% of the votes in a three-candidate race, and again in 2016 with 61.7% of the votes.

As a representative, Peggy serves as the Assistant Minority Leader. She is a member of the Committees for Education Policy, Education Finance, and Capital Investment. She has focused her efforts on access to and affordability of health care, mental health for students, foster care, and increasing student access to trades education.

The inventive Jeremiah Murray uses “meat sweats” to teach history lesson

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US History teacher Jeremiah Murray shows up to class wearing “meat sweats” as a visual assist to teach concepts related to his course material.

Some educators will do anything to teach a lesson in their class. This is certainly true of Jeremiah Murray, a US History teacher at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Eastvale, California.

Jeremiah showed up at school this week in a set of Arby’s “meat sweats,” which he says are really difficult to obtain. “This may seem weird, but I have been trying to get these meat sweats from Arby’s for about two years,” confessed the inventive educator. “I have asked Arby’s on multiple occasions from multiple platforms, only to always be denied,” he continued. “I wanted them for when I teach about the Progressive Era and the Meat Inspection Act,” he explained.

Evidently one of Jeremiah’s students reached out to Arby’s, bombarding the company with daily emails until she finally got a response to the request. “It came with a handwritten note from corporate Arby’s thanking me for impacting students, and a gift card,” Jeremiah says. And all the credit goes to the student, the teacher claims. “She literally got me something that cannot be bought,” he said. “And the kicker, the student didn’t even seek credit. She said it was from the whole class,” he said.

“I absolutely love what I do and am incredibly blessed to have all of my amazing students,” Jeremiah concluded.

England’s Andria Zafirakou garners 2018 Varkey Global Teacher Prize

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In 2018, teacher Andria Zafirakou of London, England, was awarded the Global Teacher Prize by the Varkey Foundation. She teaches arts and textiles at Alperton Community School. The school is located in one of the UK’s poorest boroughs, Brent, where crime rates are high and gang presence is a huge problem.

Brent is one of the most ethnically diverse places in England. Officials count 130 languages are spoken in its schools. Students come from some of the poorest families in Britain, many sharing one house with five other families. The area has the third highest murder rate in the United Kingdom. Children arrive at the school with limited skills. They already feel isolated from staff and each other, making engaging with them all the more difficult and all the more vital.

The odds of succeeding with these kids are slim, but Andria defied them daily. Working as an art and textiles teacher and as a member of the senior leadership team tasked with earning the trust of her students and their families, she redesigned the curriculum across all subjects. She helped a music teacher launch a Somali school choir, and she created alternative timetables to allow girls-only sports that would not offend some of the more conservative communities.

No wonder Andria garnered the international award. She’s a true Chalkboard Champion. To learn more about her and her school, view the brief video below.

Kimberly Dickstein named New Jersey 2019-2020 Teacher of the Year

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High school English teacher Kimberly Dickstein named New Jersey’s 2019-2020 Teacher of the Year.

Congratulations are in order for high school English teacher Kimberly Dickstein, who has been named New Jersey’s 2019-2020 Teacher of the Year.

Kimberly teaches at Haddonfield Memorial High School. Her career at Haddonfield has spanned 11 years. During these years, the indefatigable educator advises the school’s Model United Nations, Shakespeare Troupe, and Stand With Camden. She also serves on the Community Advisory Board and advises the Youth Leadership Council. And as if all that wasn’t enough, she also contributes her many talents to her community’s Urban Promise, Cathedral Kitchen, Book Smiles, the Camden Rescue Mission, Camden Reads, and Camden Printworks.

Kimberly says she teaches her students to embrace her own spirit of volunteerism. She strives to help them understand that social justice begins with listening to others and standing together. “I have always felt the call to public service,” the teacher once confessed. “I can think of no better way to serve than in the classroom,” she said.

Over the years, Kimberly has earned many accolades. In June, 2019, Princeton University recognized her as a Distinguished Secondary School Teacher. For her contributions to her community, Camden County honored her with their Martin Luther King, Jr., Freedom Medal in 2019. To earn this honor, the hardworking educator inaugurated an advocacy campaign with her students in 2018. The group helped a former child soldier from South Sudan achieve his educational goals. The effort received local and national attention.

And that’s not all. South Jersey Magazine named Kimberly a South Jersey Super Woman in November, 2017. In 2017, the Victorious Foundation nominated the stellar educator for the L’Oreal Woman of Worth Award program, which recognizes women who make an extraordinary impact on their communities.

This amazing woman grew up in Camden County, New Jersey. There she attended Voorhees Township Public Schools. The honored educator earned her Bachelor’s degree in English and Political Science in 2008, and her Master’s in English Secondary Education in 2009, both from Rutger’s University. She has also completed courses in Shakespeare studies at the Folger Shakespeare Library and Oxford University. In addition, Kimberly has furthered her understanding of her course material by participating in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Kimberly Dickstein: A true Chalkboard Champion!

To read more about Kimberly, see this online article posted by the State of New Jersey Department of Education.

High school teacher, explorer, cartographer, and writer  Prentice G. Downes

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High school teacher, explorer, cartographer, cultural anthropologist, and writer  Prentice G. Downes.

Many fine educators have distinguished themselves in areas outside the field of education. One such individual was high school teacher Prentice G. Downes, known to his friends by the nickname “Spike.” In addition to his career as an educator, Prentice made a name for himself as an explorer, cartographer, cultural anthropologist, and writer.

Prentice was born 1909 in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of an Episcopal clergyman. After his 1928 graduation from Kent School in Kent, Connecticut, Prentice enrolled at Harvard University. Once he was ready to begin his career as a teacher, he accepted a position at Belmont Hill School, a prestigious New England prep school for boys located in Belmont, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.

Prentice was well-known for hurrying back to class in unkempt condition each fall. Between 1936 and 1947, the native of Concord, Massachusetts, made several summer-long expeditions into the sprawling uncharted wilderness of subarctic Canada. Working on a shoestring budget, Prentice would round up a canoe, gear, food, and a local traveling associate. Then he would set out for the great unknown. He was notorious for cutting trips close to the wire, rushing back to Boston bearded, tanned, and garbed in threadbare bush clothes just in time for the beginning of school.

This intrepid teacher traveled by canoe to explore subarctic areas in the Great Barren Lands and learn about the lifestyles of the Native American tribes. During his travels, Prentice kept extensive journals recording a disappearing people and a landscape unknown to all but the Canadian natives at that time. He recorded not only daily events, but also the stories and traditions of the peoples he encountered, particularly people of the Cree and Dene tribes.

In 1939, Prentice traveled from the Brabant Lake area to the Cochrane River, starting at the town of Brochet on Reindeer Lake. Without the aid of maps, the intrepid teacher relied completely on local legend to find his way to the Thlewiaza River and his final destination, the Hudson Bay outpost on Nueltin Lake. Based on this trip, Prentice wrote the travelogue Sleeping Island: The Story of One Man’s Travels in the Great Barren Lands of the Canadian North. First published in 1943, this classic adventure story received a stellar review from the New York Times for its engaging descriptions of the expedition across a rugged landscape of lakes and rivers in northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and present-day Nunavut. Besides the polished and captivating writing style, Sleeping Island stands out because it documented ways of life that no longer exist.

In his later years, Prentice delivered lectures about his travels for Harvard’s Institute of Geographical Exploration. Additionally, he was commissioned by the US government to map portions of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. He also became a member of the prestigious Royal Geographical society.

This chalkboard champion passed away in 1959 at the young age of 50.