Nancie Atwell is congratulated by Robert Hass on being named Teacher of the Year in 2010. (Photo: Abby Brack / loc.gov)
Nancie Atwell, a teacher of literature and founder of the Center for Teaching and Learning in Edgecomb, Maine, has won the Global Teacher Prize and with it, $1 million, which she plans to donate entirely to the center, the Associated Press reports.
Ms Atwell has won a few awards and honors in her 42 years of teaching, including the 2010 Teacher of the Year from the Center for Environmental Literacy and Kalmanovitz School of Education at St Mary’s College in California. The prize here is bigger, though. Much bigger.
About being a leader as a teacher, she said:
In the classroom, I push myself to do my best by children. Outside of it, I push just as hard to tell stories about teaching, describe the insights I glean, and urge other teachers to adopt robust practices that engage students and lead them to excellence.
This is the first year for the Global Teacher Prize, created by the Varkey Foundation to be sort of a Nobel Prize for teachers. Among the 10 finalists, who were flown to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for the award ceremony, were two teachers, including Ms Atwell, from the US, and other teachers from Afghanistan, India, Haiti, Cambodia, Malaysia, Kenya, and the UK.
Sunny Varkey, who created the nonprofit that bears his family name and focuses on education issues, announced the winner from the stage, saying he hoped to make such announcements an annual celebration.
The AP quoted Mr Varkey as saying that the award is aimed at fostering an admiration for teachers and to say “to a celebrity-obsessed world that teachers are important and worthy of respect.”