posted by: Cindy Omlin
| April 11, 2012, 07:04 PM
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Ms. Huggard credits Dale Kleinert, her music teacher at Moscow Junior High School (now superintendent of Moscow School District) with creating a caring, fun and uplifting environment and her love of music as the inspirations for her becoming a music teacher. She cites one her greatest satisfactions as a teacher was taking her inner-city students in the New Jersey projects to a level where they believed in themselves and could perform any style of music. Her greatest challenge was relating to those same students because she had not experienced the same heartbreaking sufferings they had.
Ms. Huggard believes that Northwest Professional Educators can best support teachers in the classroom by giving them a voice. "So many times I felt like my opinion didn't matter because I was just the teacher, not a parent. Encouraging administrators to listen to the voices of their teachers in addition to the parents would be a significant help to raise the professionalism of teaching as a career."
NWPE awards classroom grants and teacher scholarships up to $500. The deadline for fall 2012 applications is October 31. Teachers can apply online at NWPE's website.
Picture: Laura Huggard (L) with Charlotte Shearer, NWPE (R)
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