I’ve come in for a few awards recently. In the last three weeks, I have been recognized with the following:
- I am a Western Suffolk BOCES Model Schools Technology Integration Award Winner for 2012. This gives me a $1000 grant that I can use to buy something for my classes, and I’m buying this.
- I am the Kim Foglia AP Biology Service Award winner for 2012. This award goes to people who do good things for the AP Biology teaching community, and is named in honor of a great colleague and friend to us all.
- I am the Suffolk County Science Teachers Association High School Science Teacher of the Year. This one is probably pretty self explanatory.
All of them are, in some way, related to the scope and scale of the sharing of the work that I do. Which always tickles me, since, anyone with the inclination, could do similar sorts of things.
If one were to sit around and think about just how silly it is to suggest that any one particular teacher is more deserving of recognition than any one particular other teacher, one would quickly realize that this is not a particularly square-able circle. That’s not me being self-effacing (I am nothing if not confident of just how great a job I do in doing my great job), it’s just me speaking a bit of sense. I have enough of a connection to the staff of my district, the teachers in my geographic location, and (thanks to twitter) throughout the world, to know that great people are doing lots of great things. But to leave it there misses the point. The honor in these awards is not in the various titles, it’s in the fact that colleagues, bosses, and former students, actually think that you deserve them. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the biggest honor, and it’s pretty great.