Well, the summer was so busy that I have forgotten to publish a Teacher of the Month article since last May! Oh well. I do want to see keep these going so we’ll just pick it up again from here. Remember that it shouldn’t just be me that chooses the person, so if you have a person you would like to nominate just send the name in to me. I was thinking that we could make the process more democratic and vote and all that but doing that via the internet would just get too time consuming and complex, so let’s just keep going this way. (Click on the Teacher of the Year category here to read about past honorees – there are some great names there, going back to early 2013 when we started the program and Jeffery Brickler was the Teacher of the Month in March of 2013.)
The Teacher of the Month for October is kind of obvious. Michele Whaley has spent October getting about as high an honor as a teacher can get, while at the same time being attacked by ignorant colleagues about as badly as one can be, while staying above all that (even though her job was on the line) and keeping her hands on what counts, best practices for kids, as she has done for years.
As the Alaskan Foreign Language Teacher of the Year for 2014-2015, Michele has recently set the bar just about as high as it could possibly go in her state. She is a whirling force for change. Many of us have had the pleasure of visiting with her in various conferences. If there is a conference, she is there, and the distance from Alaska doesn’t seem to bother her, whether it is going over to share ideas with her next door neighbors there in Russia, or coming down here to educate people on reading and other techniques, which she usually does with Laurie Clarcq.
Michele’s high character became apparent last week when she was attacked by a colleague in a position of power. This is a person, the Alaska state WL Coordinator, who has lately revealed startling ignorance of Michele’s work, just because it is different and new and perhaps a bit too exciting for him. There was a webinar from this person and some of us heard it before it was taken down and another chink was placed in the armor of those who like to judge without fully knowing.
It is clear that Michele Whaley is a leader in the worldwide foreign language teaching community. Working without show or glitz, she just keeps raising the bar for everybody she comes in contact with, and when the change comes to Russia it will be seen that it will have had its base in the classrooms where Michele and her CI based colleagues currently work. We are so lucky to have Michele participating in our discussions here on the PLC and it is with great collegial respect and pride that we claim Michele as one of our own in this work. So congratulations Michele, on work well done! You are helping a lot of people!