With a bachelor's from the Wilson School and a masters in education from Harvard, Jason Kamras '95 could have chosen among many lucrative job opportunities. Instead, he decided to become a middle school mathematics teacher — a decision that has won him the 2005 Teacher of the Year award.
"I think teaching is incredibly important work and there's nothing that I'd rather be doing," Kamras said. "I know there are other opportunities available to me but this is what I love doing."
Kamras, who met with President Bush at a ceremony honoring him and other State Teachers of the Year Wednesday, said that it was "a privilege to stand in the Oval Office" and that the President was "very congratulatory."
Kamras said it was "a bit overwhelming and an incredibly humbling feeling" to be representing the entire teaching profession. Educators must be named State Teachers of the Year before being eligible at the national level.
Receiving the award means that Kamras will leave teaching for a year to speak and participate in conferences on education, both nationally and abroad.
He attributes his interest in teaching to his mother, who taught in the New York City school system, and to his experiences in tutoring with the Student Volunteers Council on campus and Volunteers in Service to America.
Kamras has been teaching seventhand eighth-graders at John Philip Sousa Middle School, a public school located in a poorer section of Washington, D.C., for almost a decade.
He is credited with dramatically changing how math is taught at the school through his innovative use of games and technology in the classroom.
His aim is to "make [math] exciting for students so they'll look forward to coming to class," something he achieves by creating games like "Integer Tag" and "Math-aerobics." The latter is a game in which students form acute angles and other geometrical figures with their arms when Kamras calls out the names of the figures.
Kamras has also made efforts to integrate technology into regular classroom operations by using computers and LCD projectors to "demonstrate everything that I say," saying that he loves "taking complex ideas and breaking them down to share with students."
