Obama and Duncan honor Shearer ’95 with National Teacher of the Year prize

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Day on May 3, President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan presented Michelle Shearer ’95 with the 61st annual National Teacher of the Year award. Shearer, an AP Chemistry teacher at Maryland’s Urbana High School, received the honor at a ceremony held at the White House Rose Garden.

“In the words of one of my favorite poets, William Butler Yeats, ‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire,’ ” Obama said at the reception. “Teachers here today, and thousands like them, are surrounded every day by young people who will shape our future. But it takes a special person to recognize that. It takes a special person to light that fire, to raise our children’s expectations for themselves, and never give up on them no matter how challenging it might be.”

Shearer, who has taught for 14 years, was responsible for bringing the AP Chemistry program to the Maryland School for the Deaf for the first time in the school’s 135-year history. The program was conducted entirely in American Sign Language.

Since she began teaching AP Chemistry, Shearer said in her application materials, she has followed her belief that there exists “an aspiring scientist in all of us” by sharing her vision with students of all aptitudes and competencies, including those with “low vision, dyslexia, dysgraphia, attention deficit disorder and Asperger’s syndrome.”

Her personal teaching philosophy is based on “the belief that an educator’s strong positive connection with students is essential to their academic success,” she added.

“When students feel that a teacher is genuinely invested in their progress, they become eager to invest in themselves and take ownership of their educational efforts,” Shearer explained.

Outside of teaching, Shearer is also actively involved in her school’s community. She has coached Urbana High School’s girls’ varsity lacrosse team and boys’ and girls’ swimming teams. Shearer also worked with teachers and students in the International Baccalaureate program on service projects and coached the Maryland School for the Deaf Academic Bowl team to a 2004 regional championship.

During the ceremony, the president also addressed some of the challenges currently facing the nation’s education system.

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“That’s why we’ve set a goal of preparing 100,000 new teachers in the field of science, technology, engineering and math over the next decade — fields that will give students the skills they need to compete with their peers anywhere in the world,” Obama said. “To help those teachers succeed, I’ve called on Congress to move quickly to fix No Child Left Behind in a way that makes it less punitive, more focused, more flexible.”

“That means doing a better job of preparing teachers, doing a better job of measuring their success in the classroom, helping them improve in providing professional development and then holding them accountable,” he said.

Shearer said in her application that she believed a number of issues need to be addressed in the field of public education. Among the most pressing are “inequities that continue to plague our educational system,” “best practices in instruction” and “student safety and acceptance,” she explained.

Public education, according to Shearer, means providing for the “complex education needs of children of all ages, abilities, interests ... an enormous challenge” that begets an “ongoing need for reflection and the implementation of positive change.”

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Another challenge, she said, is the nation’s “pervasive ... lack of respect for teachers.”

Shearer said in her application for the award that she knew from a young age that she wanted to become a teacher but that during her years at the University she “felt the pressure to become ‘something more.’ ”

A volunteer position with the Student Volunteer Council, which allowed her to work with students at the Marie Katzenbach School for the Deaf in Trenton, reminded Shearer of her original passion, she explained.

“One day in my junior year ... I got up from my desk and walked to the Teacher Preparation Program office to discuss certification,” Shearer said. “Whatever was required, I knew I simply had to teach!”

According to an interview with Education Week, Shearer said she hopes to “elevate the level of the teaching profession.” In order to do so, people must “share ... the positive stories,” she said.

“If you sit down with any teacher, they can tell you the great things they’re doing,” she added. “We have to be willing to take the time to listen to those positive stories.”

Although she receives disapproving looks when she mentions her alma mater and “teacher” in the same breath, Shearer said, she is “exactly where I want to be and proud that I have chosen education as the focus of my life’s work ... I have no intention of leaving the classroom.”

Shearer also received the Siemens Award for AP Teaching in 2009 and the New Jersey Commissioner’s Distinguished Teacher Candidate Award in 1995. In 2002, her AP students awarded her the “Award of Awesomeness,” granted “in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of being the best teacher ever.”