Highland Park Teacher Recognized Nationally for Achievements and Potential in Teaching
Jennifer
Evans Lowry is a Highland Park
educator through and through. She first substituted there, later did her pre-service
work at the school, and was hired as a teacher once she graduated by former Highland Park principal
Celeste Scott. Now in her seventh year of teaching, she talks about the family
she has at this Mid-Del school. "Everyone was so welcoming and so supportive
from the very beginning," she explains. "The other staff here are fantastic."
For the
past six months, though, this fifth-grade math teacher has been in the
national spotlight after winning a 2011 Milken Educator Award. The Milken
Educator Award, sometimes called the Oscar of teaching, is a national award
recognizing quality teaching, professional leadership, and engagement with
families and the community. Awardees are selected in the early to midpoint of
their careers for what they have achieved, and no less important, for the
promise of what they will accomplish in the future.
With a
$25,000 award to the teacher, and no formal nomination or application process, the
award was a total surprise to Ms. Evans. Milken Award winners are recommended
by an independent blue ribbon committee formed by each state department of
education, with final selection made by the Milken Family Foundation. She
learned about the honor at a school assembly last October, when then State
Superintendent Sandy Garrett and a Milken Family Foundation representative
personally went to Highland Park
to make the award.
Ms. Evans
was one of 53 teachers to win the award nationally this year, and the only
teacher from Oklahoma.
In addition to the recognition and monetary award, Milken Award winners join a
formal network of current and previous winners, which puts her in contact with
other Oklahoma
winners and those from other states. She is already having regular
conversations with 2010 winner Chris Brewster, superintendent of the Santa Fe
South Schools in Oklahoma City.
She is just
back from the 2011 Milken Educator Forum in Santa Monica, CA,
and she admits her head is still swimming with ideas and energy. At the forum,
the responsibility that goes along with this prestigious award was impressed
upon her. "We were challenged to be a voice for teachers," she says.
"It is
really powerful to be with a group of people who have a passion about
education, and the dedication to do something about it," she explains. "This
group of educators is incredibly positive and all about finding solutions.
"When
someone raises an issue, there is no griping," she says. "Everyone brainstorms
ways to fix it. We are not looking for excuses, looking to blame the parents,
the kids, the test scores, testing, or anything else. We can’t change where we
are starting, but we can change where we are ending."
That
thinking comes across as Ms. Evans shares some of the challenges of teaching. "You cannot just dismiss students because they're not doing well. You need to
find out why they're not doing well, and figure out how you can change that, be
it some teacher time, some quiet time, tutor time… A teacher needs to identify
each child's biggest need and work on it. You cannot fix their home life, but
you can make an impact."
Ms. Evans has one
child this year whose house is just too full for him to be able to do homework.
With ten people in the home, he has to share his bedroom with three other boys
while each parent works two jobs to support the family. There is no place for
him to be quiet, to have fun, nor to do homework. "It simply was not going to
happen," she emphasizes, which resulted in him being a D student.
"I made a
way for him to stay after school with me so that he had some quiet time to work
on his homework, and some attention from me with it. He needed one person to
notice why he wasn’t progressing," she shares. "If we just dismiss, if we don't
find out why… We are working together during my planning time now, and he has
brought his grades up to C's."
"You have
to focus on the positives of this career," she stresses. "You have to find, even
on the roughest days, how you have touched someone's life. Because you've
touched at least one child. Teaching is a challenging career, but we got into
teaching to change the lives of children, and that's what it is all about."
|
