Mt. Washington Teacher Presented With Teacher Of The Year Award
BALTIMORE (WJZ)—A local middle school social studies teacher was recently named City Schools' 2015 Teacher of the Year.
As Gigi Barnett reports, he beat out hundreds of teachers to take the title.
Mt. Washington Middle School social studies teacher Ryan Kaiser has no idea the award he's about to receive.
Down the hall, city school CEO Gregory Thornton is about to surprise Kaiser with "Teacher of the Year" award.
"I feel like this is the first time I've won anything since track and field in elementary school. And, most of those were the green that say thank you for participating," said Ryan Kaiser, Baltimore Teacher of the Year.
But this award is a big one.
Kaiser beat out at least 200 other teachers around the city who competed for the title.
"If they had to pick one I'll take it this year, but there are many who deserve this around the city," said Kaiser.
"He makes learning come alive and I'm so proud of him and I'm proud of all of our teacher and he will certainly represent us well in the state," said Gregory Thornton, Baltimore School CEO.
Thornton says that's one of the reasons why he chose Kaiser after a face-to-face interview.
Another reason, Kaiser teaches social studies and finds a way to infuse a slew of topics into his classroom.
Kaiser says, "Social studies isn't just somethings that happened in year's past that aren't connected to science or language arts. Everything's connected and, so I try to make it a cross-curriculum effort. We try to go on as many field trips as possible to connect what we're learning in the classroom."
The Mount Washington School teacher will now advance to the 2015-16 Maryland State Teacher of the Year competition. The winner goes on to represent the state at the national level.
