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Yesterday, the Council of Chief State School Officers named Michael Geison the 2008 Teacher of the Year. We at Public School Insights are quite happy with the choice, because Geison personifies the best of 21st-century education. He tailors his instruction to individual students' interests and needs, he engages them in hands-on work, and he promotes greater collaboration among members of the school community.

(We're talking about the guy in the middle.)

CCSSO executive director Gene Wilhoit clearly agrees:

“Geisen is exactly the type of educator we want to acknowledge. He believes in and encourages collaboration between and among teachers and school leaders as he knows this brings the right focus on the student. We at CCSSO are supportive and working toward creating a collaborative and student-centered 21st century educator development system and are pleased to have our National Teacher of the Year reflect our values and direction in this area of work." 

Here's Geisen himself, as extensively quoted on the CCSSO website:

“A great teacher,” he says, “is a unifier of ideas, a unifier of people, and a unifier of ideas with people. In my teaching I strive to bring together creativity and science, to unite my students into a community, and to help each person in this community connect with the big ideas of science.”

Working to keep textbooks to, as he describes it, 97 percent colorful wall decoration and 3 percent reference materials, this seventh-grade teacher strives consistently to keep all of his curriculum, labs, assignments, activities and evaluations hand-tailored.

As Geisen explains, “By doing so, I’m able to correlate them exactly with the Oregon standards, incorporate multiple levels of cognition, revise them when needed and keep them up to date with emerging science. Some of them are based on ideas that colleagues or students have shared with me, but many of them I simply dream up while in the shower or while driving to work. However they originate, I try to put a bit of myself, a bit of Prineville, and a good dose of humor and creativity into each activity, project or assignment. In fact, students even laugh during tests in our class.

“When students know that it’s not just some writer of some worksheet out there that wants them to do something,” he continues, “but that it’s local and applicable to their lives, they start to get interested. And when students are interested, they start to ask real questions. And when they ask questions, they’re on their way to becoming great scientists and learners. This enthusiasm becomes contagious, and kids spread it around our building and take it home to their families. It doesn’t happen every day for every child, but it happens frequently enough to call it a pattern. Even the non-mathematical/non-scientific kids get into it when creativity and science fuse together.”

Focusing on the research that shows when both sides of the brain are engaged, more authentic learning occurs Geisen has, as his continuous goal and hope, to ignite such passion for learning in as many people as possible and to help them make informed decisions in their everyday lives. As he explains, “I allow my curiosity and enthusiasm for learning to match my students’, and we inspire each other to further explore and wonder about the big questions and the little details that make our world so fascinating.”