Dr. Kristen Record of Stratford, Connecticut, has been inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame. Photo credit: Kristen Record
Hearty congratulations are due to educator Dr. Kristen Record of Stratford, Connecticut. She has been inducted into the 2023 Class of the National Teachers Hall of Fame (NTHF).
The honored educator teaches Honors Physics to juniors and seniors at Bunnell High School in Stratford. She also serves as the Senior Class Advisor. She also participates on her District’s Teacher Education and Mentoring Team. Further, she is active ion her local teachers’ union, service as the Secondary Vice President and the Chairperson of the Contract Negotiations team. Her career as an educator spans 23 years, all of them in Stratford Public Schools.
She was just a little girl when Kristen’s passion for teaching started. “When she was four years old, she would line up her stuffed animals like they were in a classroom, and she would teach them,” recalls Daniel Record, Kristen’s father, who was also a physics teacher. Her mother, Carolyn, and her brother and sister-in-law are also teachers.
Kristen’s advice for a beginning teacher? “Observe. Visit as many classrooms as possible. Observe what to emulate and what to avoid,” Kristen advises. “Great students at the door. Observe the energy they bring, and learn what’s going on beyond academics,” Kristen continues. And one more thing: take time to recreate, she advises. “Vacations are vacations. Observe them as such so you can recharge and be your best self at school,” she concludes.
Her induction into the NTHF is not the only recognition Kristen has earned. In 2022 she was involved in the 100K in 10 Teacher Forum. The Nation Education Association Foundation honored her with their California Casualty Award for Teacher Excellence in 2020. She earned a Global Learning Fellowship in 2015, and she became a Fellow of the National STEM Policy Institution at MIT/George Washington University. In 2011, she was named Connecticut’s State teacher of the Year. In 2009, she garnered a Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST).
Kristen earned her Bachelor’s degree in Science Instruction and Study from Southern Connecticut State University in 2006. She earned her Master’s degree in Teaching and Learning from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2000.
To learn more about Dr. Kristen Record, click on this link to the NTHF.
