2008 Awards of Recognition for Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities

Five Tennessee teachers received an Award of Recognition for Outstanding Teaching from Humanities Tennessee for their excellence in teaching the humanities. They were chosen from among elementary and secondary schoolteachers from across the state. Each of the recipients will receive a fellowship of $2,000 to use for professional development, and another $1,500 for humanities materials or programs at his or her school. The award recipients are:

Janna Bernstein — Kingsbury High School (Memphis)
Bernstein teaches Visual Art and Art History for Kingsbury High School. She will use her fellowship to further her studies in Latin American art by traveling through Mexico and the Yucatan, touring museums devoted to Frieda Khalo and Diego Rivera, and visiting cities both ancient and modern such as Teotihuacan and Merida. Using this experience the fellow will be better prepared to work with the growing Hispanic population in her school. The school award will be used to purchase humanities resources for the fellow's classroom and school.
Joyce McCullough — Coffee County Central High School (Manchester)
McCullough teaches English, Speech, and Drama. She will travel to England, France, and Italy, and experience the Globe Theatre, the Roman Forum, and the Louvre first hand. The fellowship will certainly enhance her classroom's studies of the Renaissance and Classical eras. She will use the school award to purchase materials for her school.
Heather McHugh — Scales Elementary School (Franklin)
McHugh teaches K-5 Visual Arts. She will use her award to travel to Greece to study the rise and progression of Greek society, politics and religion, and the implications these subjects had upon the development of their American counterparts. The travel will include the locations of Athens, Delphi, and Olympia and sites such as the Theatre of Dionysus, the Acropolis, the Temple of Apollo, and the Archeological Museum of Olympia. She will use the school award to purchase humanities resources for her school and to fund a field trip to the Parthenon in Nashville.
Nancy Smith — The Hutchison School (Memphis)
Smith teaches American Studies to sixth graders. She plans to attend a National Endowment for the Humanities teachers' workshop at Montpelier. She will use the school award to purchase humanities resources for her classroom.
Susan Wagner — Porter Elementary School (Maryville)
Wagner teaches fourth grade Language Arts, Reading, Math, Science, and Social Studies including American History up to the Civil War. Her fellowship will fund travel to cities and locations significant to the colonial period and the Revolutionary War. Activities will include visits to museums and historic sites as well as a workshop as a volunteer archaeologist at Mt. Vernon. She will use the school award to purchase humanities resources for her school as well as bring Lisa Oakley, Director of Education at the East Tennessee Historical Society, to Porter Elementary to speak about community history.

Congratulations to all of this year's award recipients. If you would like to see a list of past winners, click here.

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