The Washington Post has honored teaching excellence in the Washington region for three decades, with more than 500 teachers winning the Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award for their work in the classroom, creativity and contribution to the improvement of education.
The awards are named for Agnes Meyer, wife of Eugene Meyer, who purchased The Post in 1933. She was a staunch supporter and defender of public education and believed in the motto that still guides the awards: "Quality education is essential to the well being of our society, and good teachers are the foundation of our educational system."
The Post also honor the region's principals with the Distinguished Educational Leadership Awards, recognizing those who go beyond the day to day demands of their position to create an exceptional educational environment. Winners are invited to attend an expenses paid four day leadership seminar.
Each local school Pandora Winter Mittens Charm district selects its own winners from a list of internal nominees. Teachers must work full time in pre K through 12th grade and meet other eligibility criteria, including instilling in students a desire to learn and achieve. Some districts don't have an honoree every year.
The teachers, who each receive a $3,000 cash awards, are examples of what works in the classrooms, such as inspiring the underprivileged, helping a non native speaker understand English, and making challenging academic subjects accessible and fun. Here, The Post's education team profiles a selection of the 2014 winners, taking us into their classrooms and showing why they are some of Washington's best educators. Find a complete list here.
(Andre Chung/For The Washington Post)
Moosa Shah, Rachel Carson Middle, Herndon
As a child in Kabul, where Russian soldiers toting Kalashnikovs patrolled his neighborhood and Soviet tanks rumbled down the roads, Moosa Shah remembers his father telling him: "Education is freedom in this world."
Determined to save his children from war and find them a life of opportunity, Shah's father arranged to spirit his family from Afghanistan to the United States, eventually landing in an apartment in Falls Church. It was early 1980, the adolescent Shah spoke no English, and he sat silent in his Fairfax County classrooms.
"I was afraid of speaking," Shah says.
Now a 20 year science teacher at Rachel Carson Middle School, Shah, 45, said he finds his most rewarding work with students who are recent Pandora Bracelets immigrants, Pandora Ring seeing a shade of himself in the quiet ones still fumbling with the language. The miracle of science, he shows the students, is universal.
"Watching them look into the microscope for the first time and seeing cells, that 'wow' factor," is fulfilling, Shah says. "I don't get tired of it, because I see the subject every year with new eyes."
Shah's dedication to seventh grade students learning English and his inclusive nature make him a standout member of the faculty at Rachel Carson, said Principal August Frattali.
"Moosa knows how to make students feel comfortable asking questions, how to learn from their mistakes, and how to feel good about interacting with other students in collaborative work," Frattali said.
Shah, chairman of Rachel Carson's science department, never set out to become a teacher.
After graduating from Chantilly High School, Shah studied biology at George Mason University. He briefly enrolled Pandora Ring in dental school at the University of Maryland before discovering where he really belonged: at the head of the classroom. He found his passion as a student teacher at Robinson Secondary and Cub Run Elementary, and in 1992 he took a full time position with the school system that had nurtured his own budding interest in education.
As a teacher, Shah said, "you're not going to get paid much, but when you make a difference with a kid it's really powerful."
Rishitha Anumola, a former student of Shah's and now an eighth grader at Rachel Carson, said that the teacher is known for his self deprecating sense of humor. Playing on his own first name, Moosa, he has decorated his classroom with pictures of moose and a sign that reads: "Beware of attack moose."
"Regardless of the mood of the student walking into his classroom, they will always walk out with a smile on their face," Rishitha said.
On a recent afternoon, Shah guided students through a lesson on plant biology by having them observe onion skin cells through a microscope. Of the two dozen students in his classroom, only five spoke English fluently, and there were natives of China, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Iraq and Liberia.
Shah likes to keep his lectures short and provide lots of visuals. On a slide projection, Shah displayed the magnified onion skin.
"See the circular thing inside? That's the nucleus," Shah said. "Cells are the building blocks of life."
Nahom Kifefew, a 12 year old who was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and whose first language is Amharic, said that Shah knows how to communicate complex ideas in simple terms.
"He speaks slowly, and he says he will help you anytime," Nahom said.
Shah identifies with his immigrant students. He became an American citizen while in high school, but he still has family in Afghanistan, though he has never been back to the country of his birth. He credits his early years there with inspiring him to serve as a teacher.