Covid-19 claims life of South Carolina teacher Demi Bannister
Covid-19 claims the life of another beloved educator: Elementary school teacher Demi Bannister of Columbia, South Carolina. Photo credit: Richland Two School District
With great sadness, we report that Covid-19 has claimed the life of another beloved educator. Demi Bannister, a third grade teacher from Columbia, South Carolina, passed away from the affliction on September 7, 2020. She was only 28 years old.
Demi had just started her fifth year of teaching at Windsor Elementary School. She was at the school on Aug. 28, during a week of teacher inservice days before the school year began. She started teaching the following week from home, school district officials said, and passed away about two weeks later.
As a teacher, Demi had a reputation for creativity, and attention to detail to connect with her students. “She was known for having her classroom upbeat and setting her expectations high,” recalled colleague Rebecca Twitty. “Even if she knew a particular student would struggle with a lesson, she wouldn’t let them look down on themselves,” Twitty continued.
Known for her beautiful singing voice and her love of music, Demi was in charge of the school choir. Last year, she even wrote a song about the importance of school to the tune of the popular song “Old Town Road,” remembered Denise Quickel, Principal of Windsor Elementary. The song was composed by rapper Lil Nas X.
To read more about this amazing educator, follow this link to a story published by The State. To read more about how Covid-19 is affecting professional educators all over the country, see this article published by US News and World Report.
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Tennessee’s Shasta Charlton earns Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year award
First-year high school STEM teacher Shasta Charlton of Nashville, Tennessee, earns coveted 2019 Amazon Future Engineer Teacher award.
It isn’t often that a first year teacher is singled out for special recognition for their work in the classroom. But this is what happened to Shasta Charlton, a high school STEM teacher from Nashville, Tennessee. She has earned a coveted Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year award for 2019. The recognition comes with $50,000 in classroom technology for her classroom. Shasta was one of ten exceptional educators to win an Amazon award in 2019.
Shasta earned her degree at Tennessee State University. She teaches computer science 10th through 12th grade at Whites Creek Comprehensive High School. She also serves as the advisor for her school’s Robotics Club.
“Mrs. Charlton is a first-year teacher whose passion and dedication go beyond her subject matter expertise by helping students achieve more than they thought possible,” declared Jeremiah Davis, Principal at Whites Creek. “She challenges students through exposure to various industries and technology while providing the support and encouragement needed for students to excel,” he continued. “Amazon’s extreme generosity will continue to fuel exposure and success for Whites Creek Cobras in technological arenas,” the principal concluded.
Charlton was selected among thousands of teachers and Amazon said she was recognized for going above and beyond to inspire her students to build skills in computer science, and to promote diversity and inclusion in the field, in their classroom and beyond.
To read more about Shasta Charlton, see this article published by the Tennessee State University Newsroom.
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Rhode Island’s Loren Spears: Teacher, essayist, artist, and tribal council woman
Rhode island’s Loren Spears: Teacher, essayist, artist, and tribal council woman of the Narragansett Tribe. Photo credit: Rhode Island State Council on the Arts
Many talented and dedicated educators work diligently to foster an appreciation for the cultures of under-represented ethnic groups. One such educator is Loren Spears, a teacher, essayist, artist, and tribal council woman of the Narragansett Tribe in Rhode Island.
As a youngster, Loren attended Chariho Regional High School in her home town of Charleston, a rural village in southern Rhode Island. After her high school graduation, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and Teaching at the University of Rhode Island, graduating in 1988. She earned her Master’s degree in Education at the University of New England in 2002.
Loren’s teaching career spanned two decades and included twelve years as a first grade and fourth grade teacher in the Newport Public School system working with at-risk children. Throughout her professional career, Loren has always been a strong advocate for integrating more Native American history and experiential learning into school curriculum. Loren says she remembers, “Being in a history class during my elementary days and actually reading that I supposedly didn’t exist, that my family didn’t exist, that my people didn’t exist.” She has spent much of her adult life correcting that misimpression.
In addition to her professional accomplishments as a teacher, Loren works as the executive director and curator of the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island. The museum was the site of a private, state-certified school, the Nuweetooun School, which this talented educator directed from 2003 to 2010. Nuweetooun, which translates as “Our Home” in the Narragansett language, was founded by Loren with the help of the Narragansett community and generous donations, including monies from a local charity, the Narragansett Tribe, and the Rhode Island Foundation. Though Loren is Narragansett, the school is not connected to any specific tribe. As the school’s director, Loren made sure that the Nuweetooun School provided Native American children from kindergarten through the eighth grade an experiential, collaborative curriculum based on Native American traditions and culture, as well as standard academic subjects, including mathematics, language arts, social studies, science, and health.
In June, 2005, Loren received the Feinstein Salute to Teachers, Teacher of the Month. In 2006, she earned the Native Heritage Gathering Award, and in 2010, Loren was chosen as one of eleven Extraordinary Women honorees for Rhode Island in the area of education. In 2016, First Lady Michelle Obama awarded a National Medal for Museum and Library Service to Loren Spears during a ceremony at the White House in Washington, DC.
Today, this Chalkboard Champion lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and uses her vast energy to focus on educating the public on indigenous issues, arts, culture, and history through cultural arts programming, lectures, art classes, inter-generational programming, grant writing, exhibit development and design, curriculum development, school design, Native American education, and educational consulting.
To read a short interview of Loren see this link to the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.
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Coronavirus claims life of Florida teacher and coach Robert Shackelford
Florida history teacher and former football coach Robert Shackelford succumbs to the coronavirus.
Sadly, the coronavirus has claimed the life of yet another beloved educator. Robert Shackelford, a Florida teacher and former football coach, passed away from the disease on July 22, 2020. He was 61 years old.
In a career that spanned 30 years, Robert taught social studies at Sarasota High School in Sarasota, Florida. Robert had planned to teach only one more year before retiring.
In addition to teaching, Robert earned some fame as a pro football player. He played football in the NFL as a free agent for the Packers in 1981, the Atlanta Falcons in 1982, and the Birmingham Stallions in 1983. He coached football with the US Army at Ft. Benning, Union College in Kentucky, and University of Central Flolrida. In 1994, he coached with the Tampa Bay Storm. Once he went to work at the high school level, Robert coached high school football in Manatee, Sarasota, and Charlotte Counties.
But it was his career as a classroom educator that really filled his life. “Teaching was not a profession for dad, it was not a job, it was a calling,” remembers Robert’s daughter, Kari Shackelford. “It was something he had a true gift for,” she said. Robert’s colleague Stella Karas agreed. “He really loved what he did,” she declared. “He had among the highest scores for US History, and just was an encyclopedia of knowledge when it came to all things history and government,” she commented. Karas said Robert had a way of capturing the attention of his students. He made a subject not many students were interested in fascinating. “He really made history come alive for his kids,” she said.
Robert Shackelford will be be missed by many. To read more about this amazing educator, see the story about him published online by WTSP-TV 10.
