Tag Archives: Secondary Teachers

Florida teacher Ashely Hernandez earns prestigious Milken Award

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Congrats to Ashley Hernandez, a high school math educator from Florida who has earned a prestigious Milken Award for 2021-2022. Photo Credit: Herald Tribune

Congratulations are in order for Ashley Hernandez, a high school math educator from Florida who has earned a prestigious Milken Award for 2021-2022. The award honors exemplary teachers nationwide, and has been given to only about 60 educators this year.

Ashley, whose career as an educator spans 14 years, currently teaches Geometry and Advanced Placement Statistics in grades nine through twelve at Riverview High School in Sarasota, Florida. “Teachers like Ashley Hernandez have a special gift for making students feel heard and valued,” asserts Stephanie Bishop, Milken Educator Awards Vice President. “Her positive attitude and compassion for the transitions and challenges that high schoolers face create an environment where students can excel in their academic journey and beyond,” Bishop continues.

In addition to her responsibilities in the classroom, Ashley serves on her school’s instructional leadership team and she is a member of her district’s leadership academy. In addition, she delivers professional development sessions on student engagement and instructional technology. Throughout the pandemic, Ashley worked tirelessly to help her school’s staff master internet tools such as Zoom, Blackboard, Gradebook, and Microsoft Teams. And as if all this were not enough, Ashely she leads the PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) data team on her campus

It is her work with the PBIS that caught the attention of the Milken Awards committee. “She does so much beyond the confines of the classroom,” says Bishop. “Ashley really embodies everything that we’re looking for in an American Educator Award recipient. She is doing everything in terms of not only exemplifying academic excellence, but she is just going above and beyond to make sure that students hold needs are being met at that school,” Bishop concludes.

Ashley earned her Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Math Education from the University of South Florida in 2008. She has also earned two Master’s degrees from American College of Education, one in Curriculum and Instruction in 2013 and the other in Educational Leadership in 2018.

Teacher Prentice G. Downes: Explorer, cartographer, cultural anthropologist, and writer

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Teacher Prentice G. Downes earned fame as an explorer, cartographer, cultural anthropologist, and writer. Photo credit: canadiangeographic.ca

Many fine educators have distinguished themselves in areas outside the field of education. One 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.

Maryland educator Anne Coleman Chambers created innovative curriculum

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Dedicated educator Anne Coleman Chambers taught in public schools in Maryland before establishing her own school, the Indian Creek School, which offered an innovative curriculum. Photo credit: Pasadena Voice.

Many dedicated educators work hard to provide enhanced learning opportunities and innovative curriculum for students in their communities. One of these is Anne Coleman Chambers, a public school teacher from Maryland who founded a highly successfully private day school in her community.

Anne was born in 1940, although she was raised in Colesville. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park. Once she graduated from college, she taught in public schools in Prince George’s County in her home state until 1963.

Anne believed strongly that every student should be provided stimulating educational experiences in a small, nurturing environment in which each student is known and approached as an individual. To create this environment, she founded Indian Creek School, a co-educational Pre-K through grade 12 private school in Crownsville in 1973. Indian Creek School opened its doors in with 33 students in Pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade. Four years later, she opened a middle school that doubled its capacity, and in 2006 she added an upper school.

Anne built a curriculum for her students that offered not only a broad-based education emphasizing the fundamentals, but also stressed the importance of music, art, physical education, drama, clubs, and sports.  She included Spanish, computers, and human development instruction at a time when many schools didn’t offer those as subjects for older students, let alone for kindergartners. In addition, Anne was steadfast in her insistence that her school be a diverse and inclusive community from the start. Anne served as the school’s first Director from its founding until 2010, when she went back to the classroom to teach for one last year before she retired in 2011.

Anne Coleman Chambers passed away on Oct. 12, 2020, in Hagerstown, Maryland. She was 80 years old. She was a true Chalkboard Champion.

 

Wisconsin’s George Nelson Tremper: Educator extraordinaire

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George Nelson Tremper was an outstanding teacher and principal in the early 20th century Kenosha, Wisconsin. Photo credit: Kenosha Unified School District.

Throughout our country’s history, there are many stories of exemplary educators that have also become school leaders in the early 20th century. One of these is George Nelson Tremper, a high school teacher from Kenosha, Wisconsin, who also served his school as an outstanding principal.

George Nelson Tremper was born in Pontiac Michigan on May 30, 1877. He completed his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan in 1901. George was a master of languages, especially Greek, Latin, and German.

George and his wife, Metta, taught for three years in the Philippines. When he returned to the United States, he taught in Franklin, Indiana. Later he became the principal in a high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. During these years, George He also taught at the University of Illinois School of Education. In addition, by 1911 he completed the courses that earned him his Master’s degree.

In 1911 he returned to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he was a teacher and an administrator at Kenosha’s Bradford High School from 1911 until 1944. When George was appointed principal, the school boasted a staff of 13 teachers and 300 students.

In addition to his work as an educator, George served as the President of the Council of the Kenosha Chapter of DeMolay. He was also a commissioner of the Boy Schouts and a member of the Kenosha County Historical Society, President of the Wisconsin Society, and he was active in the Sons of the Revolution. He was County chairman of the Citizens Military Training Corps, he was active in both the Rotary Club and the Elks Club, and he was Chairman of the Kenosha County Civilian Aid Committee.

Alas, this Chalkboard Champion passed away on February 23, 1958. In 1964, a new public high school built in Kenosha was named in his honor. To read more about George, see this article about him published online by communityworldheritage.org.

 

Ruby Fukiko Nakahara, chemistry teacher, succumbs to Covid-19

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Ruby Fukiko Nakahara, a former high school chemistry teacher who worked in Hawaii, California, and Germany, succumbed to Covid-19 on Feb. 3, 2021. Photo credit: Legacy.com.

With great sadness we report that Covid-19 has claimed the life of Ruby Fukiko Nakahara, a former high school chemistry teacher originally from Hawaii. She succumbed to the disease on Feb. 3, 2021. She was 83 years old.

Ruby, whose grandparents were Japanese immigrants, was born in Honolulu in 1937 She was raised in Hawaii in the days before statehood was declared in 1959. Her mother died when she was just 12 years old, and Ruby was raised by an aunt.

As a young woman, Ruby graduated from McKinley High School in Oahu. Following her graduation, she put herself through college, earning a Master’s degree in Chemistry and a teaching credential from the University of Hawaii. Later she earned a scholarship to Oregon State University in Corvallis, where she earned a second Master’s degree.

Once she earned her degree, Ruby taught for several years at a junior high school in Kaimuki, a small, quaint neighborhood in Honolulu. When she was 24 years old, she relocated to Palo Alto, California, where she was able to find a better teaching position at Palo Alto High School in Palo alto, California. In 1970, Ruby accepted a position to teach children in a US military base in Kaiser-Slautern, Germany. There she met Masaru Nakahara, who was working as an engineer for Hughes Aircraft. The pair were married in a small ceremony in Basil Switzerland.

Two years later, the couple returned to the United States, landing first in Massachusetts and then settling in Southern California. Over the next five decades, the veteran teacher did some substitute teaching, but health problems prevented her from going back to the classroom full-time.

Sadly, Ruby Fukiko Nakahara succumbed to Covid-19 on Feb. 3, 2021. Her ashes will be scatteredin Hawaii when travel restrictions are loosened. To read more about her, see this online obituary.