In collaboration with Doane University’s College of Education, 10/11, Nebraska is allowing people to nominate a teacher, administrator or support staff member who deserves recognition for their positive effect on you, your loved ones or your community. The nominee will have a chance to win the Golden Apple Award, an honor given out every month of the school year to an educator having an outstanding impact in Nebraska schools.
The award aims to highlight the accomplishments of teachers and school staff who often go without praise and recognition. Winners of the award will also have their stories told on the news for viewers to see. For many students at Doane, their K-12 teachers played a formative role in their life and shaped them into the students they are today.
“I’ve been blessed with a lot of great teachers in my life, but there have also been some not-so-great teachers and both have inspired me in some type of way to teach. The teachers I liked were the ones that really acted like they cared about me and what they were teaching. They didn’t always make me fall in love with the subject, and nor did they expect me to, but rather they sought to make sure I understood and helped me along the way,” sophomore Math and Secondary Education major Dakota Miser said.
According to Miser, the teachers in his life helped shape his desire to become a teacher. They helped shape him into someone who wants to give back to students and leave the same mark on his students as his teachers did for him.
“A positive teacher will leave his or her mark on a student that will likely stay with them for most of their life. Most of us can recall several teachers that we absolutely looked up to and respected and even older folks can recall at least one. This ‘mark’ can be very inspirational to a student looking to pursue a career in education where they can now pull from those positive experiences and create their own unique teaching style using bits and pieces from the teachers and mentors that had the greatest positive impact on them,” Miser said.
Students who want to nominate a K-12 teacher or staff member can do so at the website listed on the accompanying graphic and must nominate a teacher or staff member from the state of Nebraska who is currently working in education.
