Tag Archives: Special Education Teachers

Topics related to special education, including teachers who worked with special education students.

NY teacher Christina Meek garners Big Apple Award

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Elementary school teacher Christina Mesk has garnered a 2024 Big Apple Award from the New York City Department of Education for her work promoting global education experiences. Photo Credit: New York City Public Schools

Whenever an outstanding educator earns recognition for their work with young people, I am excited. Today I am excited about New York elementary school teacher Christina Mesk, who has garnered a 2024 Big Apple Award from the New York City Department of Education.

Christina teaches Special Education to fifth graders at Public School 1, The Bergen School, located in Brooklyn. She has worked at the school for 20 years. In her self-contained classroom, Christina has create a nurturing and supportive learning environment that is student-centered. There she places emphasis in which risk-taking is encouraged.

Most especially, though, Christina’s curriculum incorporates exchanges with students in other countries. “My students have used virtual exchange to speak with travelers and experts in Colombia, Cambodia, Mongolia, Bolivia, and Antarctica,” explains Christina. “These virtual exchanges have enriched our classroom experience and helped my students to understand that people in different parts of the world have different feelings and perspectives,” she continues. “The relationships they have formed with these travelers and experts have resulted in an understanding that there is more than one way to live life and be a human,” she concludes.

The honored educator is a member of both the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms program and the Transatlantic Educators Dialogue program. Also, she partners with local CBOs and nonprofits to bring virtual exchange to her classroom. In 2020, she was certified as a National Geographic Certified Educator. And as if all that were not enough, she also mentors new teachers.

Christina earned her Bachelor’s degree in English and Language Arts from the University of Mount Saint Vincent in New York in 2004. She earned her Master’s degree in Special Education from Hunter College in New York in 2008.

To learn more about Christina’s work with the Fulbright Global Classrooms Program, click on this link to an article published by the University of Mount Saint Vincent.

NY Special Ed teacher Tess Hinchman garners 2024 Big Apple Award

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Virginia “Tess” Hinchman has named a recipient of the 2024 Big Apple Award by the New York City Department of Education. Photo Credit: Williamsburg Prep High School

The New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) does a fine job of recognizing their most outstanding teachers. This year, they have honored nearly 50 classroom educators who work in public schools within New York. One of these is Virginia “Tess” Hinchman, a Special Education and Language Arts teacher from Brooklyn. She has been named a recipient of their 2024 Big Apple Award.

Tess works at Williamsburg Preparatory School, a public high school located in Brooklyn, New York. She has worked at the school for three years. In her classroom, Tess develops curriculum that empowers her students to be in charge of their own learning. Her lessons emphasize learning through multiple modalities such as writing, discussion, and critique. She also develops engaging opportunities for students to make connections to real-world concepts.

Prior to her work at Williamsburg Prep, Tess taught in Madrid, Spain, where she traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship. There she d

This is not the only work that Tess has done with international students. She also worked as an ESOL Instructor and career mentor at the Irish International Immigrant Center in New York. And she also spent five months as a teaching assistant and volunteer at Foundation Minga Valpo at Valparaíso Province in Chile.

Tess graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations with a focus on Latin American Regional Studies from Tufts University, Massachusetts, in 2019. She earned her Master’s degree in Adolescent Education with a focus in Special Education and Teaching from Hunter College in 2023.

Congratulations, Tess!

PA teacher Sarah Damato earns Outstanding Spec Ed award

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Pennsylvania teacher Sarah Damato has been named a recipient of the 2024 Outstanding Special Education Teacher Award from NASET. Photo Credit: Springfield Area Educational Foundation

Many exemplary educators have earned special recognition for their work in the classroom. One of these is Sarah Damato, a Special Education teacher from Springfield, Pennsylvania. She has been named a recipient of the 2024 Outstanding Special Education Teacher Award from the National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET). The annual award is given to Special Education and inclusion classroom teachers that have been nominated by administrators, colleagues, or parents of students.

Sarah teaches Life Skills courses at Springfield High School. She has taught there since 2019. She also serves as the advisor for the campus Buddies Club, bringing general education students and students with special needs together to participate in activities outside of school. Over 200 students belong to this club. Furthermore, Sarah founded a non-profit called Support a Sport, which gives children with disabilities the opportunity to participate in sports. At least half of her students have participated in this program. And as if all that were not enough, she is also the Head Coach for the Unified Bocce Club. This year, 36 athletes participated on the team.

In addition to her honors from NASET, Sarah has been named Best Teacher Under the Sun from the local Sun East Federal Credit Union. The award acknowledges outstanding achievements by teachers for their efforts to inspire students to reach beyond their grasp.

Sarah earned her Bachelor’s degree in Special Education in 2011, an Autism Certificate in 2013, and a Master’s degree in Special Education with an emphasis in research in 2013, all from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She earned a second Master’s degree in Elementary Education and Teaching from Relay Graduate University in 2018. In 2022, she earned a PhD in Educational Leadership and Administration from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

FL teacher Jesica Pearce garners 2024 Gladys Prior Award for Career Teaching Excellence

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Jesica Pearce, a Special Education teacher from Jacksonville in northern Florida, has earned a 2024 Gladys Prior Award for Career Teaching Excellence.  Photo Credit:University of North Florida

There are many dedicated and deserving educators who work in our nation’s schools. Occasionally, one of them receives recognition for their outstanding achievements. One of these is Jesica Pearce, an elementary school Special Education teacher from Florida. She has garnered a coveted 2024 Gladys Prior Award for Career Teaching Excellence. She is one of four northern Florida educators to win the award, which comes with a $17,000 check.

Jesica teaches students with varying exceptionalities to third, fourth, and fifth graders at Lake Lucina Elementary School in Jacksonville. Her career as an educator spans 22 years, almost all of them in Duval County Public Schools.

In addition to her Gladys Prior Award, Jesica was named a Duval County Teacher of the Year Semi-Finalist. She was also named Lake Lucina Elementary Teacher of the Year in both 2013 and 2023. Furthermore, she has also been honored as a Microsoft Innovative Education Expert and received the prestigious Cindy Edelman Excellence in Teaching Fellowship.

Jesica earned her Bachelor’s degree in Childhood Education. She earned her Master’s degree in Art Eucation from Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts. Currently she is pursuing a second Master’s degree in Global Education through Arizona State University.

The Gladys Prior Awards for Career Teaching Excellence were established in 1998 by philanthropist Gilchrist Berg, founder and president of Water Street Capital, to honor teachers who have accomplished lifelong careers in education. Over the last 26 years, Berg has distributed more than $2 million to honor teachers in the Jacksonville area. The award is named after Berg’s fourth-grade teacher at Ortega Elementary School, Gladys Prior. The University of North Florida College of Education and Human Services (COEHS) manages the award on behalf of Berg.

 

What strategies did “miracle-worker” Annie Sullivan use to teach Helen Keller?

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Helen Keller, left, with her teacher, Annie Sullivan Macy, right. Photo Credit: Public Domain 

Anne Sullivan: This teacher’s name is synonymous with Miracle Worker. Anne is the remarkable teacher who worked with Helen Keller, an extremely intelligent blind and deaf child from Tuscumbia, Alabama. The relationship between the teacher and the student is explored in the play The Miracle Worker by William Gibson, an iconic piece of American literature that is frequently taught in public schools. This award-winning play depicts the exact moment at which, due to Anne’s expert instructional efforts, Helen was able to grasp the concept of language. This knowledge unlocked a world of isolation for the little girl, allowing her to connect with her fellow human beings, and making it possible for her to earn a university degree at a time when educating women was rare. The scene is sweet. But what strategies, exactly, did the miracle-working teacher use in order to achieve this breakthrough? After extensive reading on the subject, I think I may be able to identify a few of them.

First of all, Anne read every bit of published material available in her day about the education of handicapped students. Knowledge of pedagogy is the first step to effective practice. In addition to this, Anne had the “advantage” of personal experience, as she herself had wrestled with severe vision impairment as a result of trachoma. I’m sure at one time or another, we’ve all met an educator who is particularly effective at working with students who are facing the same challenges the teacher himself faced as a youngster.

Second, Anne was a keen observer, and she made it a point to watch the normal processes of language acquisition. She then replicated those processes as best she could to fit the particular circumstances and needs of her student. Today, we would probably call this strategy recognizing brain-based learning, and coordinating teaching strategies to fit the way the brain naturally learns.

Also, experts generally agree that much of Anne’s success in teaching Helen language was attributed to the fact that the teacher always communicated to her student with complete sentences. Concrete nouns such as water or spoon, verbs such was pump or run, or adjectives such as hot or smooth,  may be easy to convey. But abstract ideas such as beauty or truth, or certain parts of speech such as pronouns and some prepositions are much more difficult to impart to an individual unable to see or hear. Yet Annie always used these words in her everyday communication with Helen anyway.

Fourth, Anne was especially adept at incorporating experiential learning into her lesson plans. The effectiveness of “learning by doing” has been well documented, but in a day and age when most instruction consisted of rote memorization without necessarily comprehending, Anne’s insistence on teaching through constructed experience was truly innovative. Wading through the creek water, climbing the tree, holding the chick as it hatched from the egg—experiences like these were the staples of Anne’s instructional program.

To learn more about Anne Sullivan Macy, I have included an abbreviated but concise biography of this amazing teacher in my book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Teachers who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, which can also be found at amazon.com at the following link: Chalkboard Champions.