First Flight High School Teacher of the Year
First Flight High School 2009-2010 Teacher of the Year, Dawn Edwards, was recognized by the Board of Education at its meeting at First Flight High on March 9. Edwards, a teacher of Exceptional Children, is in her 32nd year as an educator and her 17th year in Dare County. Edwards earned an undergraduate degree in K-12 Special Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and her graduate degree in Special Education from East Carolina University. Throughout her career, Edwards has taught all grade levels. She is a member of Dare County Schools Core Exceptional Children Leadership Team and is Lead Exceptional Children Teacher/Department Chair at First Flight High. She also serves as a mentor for EC lateral entry and transfer teachers. In addition to holding membership in numerous professional organizations, Edwards is a National Board Certified Teacher who has developed and delivered eight staff development programs and has participated in an additional four programs all in the past two years.
Edwards says she has known she wanted to teach since high school. She found her niche during the summer following her sophomore year in high school when she worked as a counselor in a recreation department program for children with disabilities. She continued working in that capacity until the summer of her freshman year in college when she was named lead counselor of the program.
Working with students from kindergarten through twelfth grade in resource, self-contained, and inclusion settings in inner-city as well as rural areas have provided Edwards with a unique perspective of education. "I am who I am today," she reflects, "because of these experiences in my life. My sensitivity to those in need, love of learning, strong work ethic, ability to work with people of any race or culture, and desire to work with young people can all be traced back to the varied paths my life followed."
Edwards and colleague, Steve Blackstock, challenged themselves to create a program to help struggling students master high school mathematics concepts at an individualized pace. "Many of our algebra students ... spent most of their energy avoiding rather than attempting to understand abstract math concepts," Blackstock relates. "This new program, made successful by Dawn's perseverance and talent, resulted in all of our students productively staying on task. Half of the class met their graduation requirement for Algebra I End of Course test, and many showed growth in their scores. But all of them left with a new sense of work ethic and pride in their work.
"While Dawn is a master educator, her true talents are somewhat less measurable. She has strong character, moral integrity, and a faith in the human condition that has helped me personally as a teacher and as a human being," Blackstock asserts. "Tasks that I wanted to pass over, she would not. Situations that I would have preferred to avoid, she could not. Students that I may have given up on, she did not."
Anyone who knows Dawn Edwards knows her as an advocate for students. While she sees each student as child that is special and worthy, she also has passion and vision for the profession. She says that the current shift from a teacher-centered to a student-centered environment where the teacher acts as a facilitator who fosters creativity and collaboration as opposed to control and competition is paramount in the 21st century classroom.
Edwards maintains, "We, as teachers, are energized by the many reforms happening in education today. Never before in my thirty-two years of teaching have I been more excited about the direction education as a whole is taking."