Making My Mark In The World

Last week, I was honored to help present Roseann  Maurantonio with a Milken National Educator Award. She is an elementary teacher at Rosendale Elementary School in Niskayuna, NY. You can catch a glimpse of me at the end of the video, holding the big check. Obviously, she was shocked and overwhelmed with receiving such a great honor. I too was just as shocked and overwhelmed when I won in 2001. I was an 8th grade math teacher who was entering my seventh year of teaching. I consider that a rookie as I am now in my 21st year of teaching. I was just a guy who loved working with the students and staff of Newport Middle High School in Newport NH. Then, in the fall of 2001, these people show up to our small rural school and award me this prestigious award. To this day, I still ask myself "Why?". Why me, out of the thousands of educators across the country? Why me out of the many colleagues in Newport who I considered to me more deserving than me? And why so early in my career

As a mathematics teacher, I'm not sure that I am completely comfortable with the idea of writing a blog. First of all, I'm not much of a writer. As a student, it was always a struggle for me to string together a series of cohesive thoughts, whether it was an essay for Social Studies or even a note to a lady of interest. Also, being a "numbers-guy", the longest thing I write these days is a 10-step geometric proof. But after reading an article on the value of teachers writing blogs ( http://www.milkeneducatorawards.org/connections/articles/view/5177 ), I have decided to give it a shot! After all, I have been teaching for (Gulp!) 21 years. I might be able to share some words of wisdom that someone, somewhere might find interesting. I hope to write a post every two weeks. I hope you enjoy. Thank you.