Hey Landen. How about sharing more details about the significance of your honor. Like how you were chosen, perks if any and how this will help with any future career movement and educational plans. Gave you a point earlier but since this a big deal, you should have another.
I'll never get voted for anything by my fellow professionals unless it's for the biggest pain in the tooshie.
Well, to be honest with you, I didn't even know anything about the award until this morning, let alone that I had been nominated. I figured it was for young pups, and since I'm not exactly one, I never paid much mind to it.
I was actually nominated for teacher of the year for my subject area, and that's what I applied for. I've been nominated for that award 3 or 4 other times, but I always kept losing (including this time) to teachers with far longer careers than me, so I just figured it wasn't my time, even though there are plenty within my state who think I'd be a strong candidate for the national teacher of the year award, which is how I think we ended up here.
Looking at how they judge regional and national award winners for my award, this award is for teachers with less than 10 years teaching experience, and I just finished my 9th. They have to show a strong devotion to advancing and creating programs, effective teaching, and service to the profession by giving presentations at conferences, serving the state organizations, and a quite a few other criteria. Looking at those, I easily check off a lot of the criteria, even though only a handful are necessary to considered for the award.
Aside from being a really strong match for the award, I think my state picked me, because historically, we have not had a strong showing with this award at the national level, and they've already told me to go for it, but I could be wrong. There just aren't a lot of young teachers who know how to do what I do across so much of the spectrum.
As for the perks, as mentioned, there is a possibility of getting some national recognition, it looks great on a resume, because i can call myself an award winning teacher, it will help with presentations in other states, and it would help with other grants I write, because people like to align themselves with teachers who have beem recognized, and things like that. Not far from me, there is a restaurant that makes it into the top 100 steakhouses in the country, and I told my wife if I win the teacher of the year award, I want dinner there. We'll see if she transfers it. If nothing else, I'm probably one of the oldest to ever get the young professional award.
I appreciate the points, and if you ever get nominated for that, I'm sure you'll be the unanimous choice.
