Let me preface this with the fact that I did not come up with this idea on my own. That said, this is the best AVID idea ever! I thank, whole-heartedly, the AVID coordinator who gave me the idea during one of our networking sessions (region 3, cohort B). You're an angel, whoever you are! Ok, so here's the idea. Every month my students nominate a teacher that they feel has been particularly supportive. Each student who chooses to nominate a teacher writes an explanation of his/her nomination on an index card (5 x 7). I read them and choose the best explanations from each grade level. I then present the awards during announcements at our monthly staff meetings. Originally, the idea was that the students would present the awards to their teachers. However, getting on the agenda at our staff meetings can be difficult.
We had to give the award a name so I asked the students for suggestions. One student shouted out, "The TONY award!." He started laughing, but to his amazement, I thought it was a good idea. We just had to figure out what the letters in the word TONY would represent. It took us about a week, but we finally decided to spell it differently and came up with Teachers Officially Nominated for Inspiring Education (the for is silent). Feel free to steal or improve on this. I created a certificate, complete with a Lancer logo that I jacked off of our school website (I hope it's not copyrighted). I presented each teacher with a certificate and a $5 Starbucks (that is copyrighted) gift card.
Now for the good part. Your teachers will LOVE this! Ok, now the person who gave me this idea told me that our teachers would love getting the recognition and that the attitudes of the teachers toward the AVID program would change tremendously. I believed her, but I still didn't know. You won't understand until you see the looks on the faces of those tired and dedicated, but underappreciated people. They were so grateful that someone could see that they were doing good. It's funny because I just assumed that they knew that we knew. I will warn you. I did have to tell one our first award winners that he couldn't start crying. (That's right, I said "he"!) At the next staff meeting, when I stood up to present the awards, I heard someone say "Oh yeah! I forgot we get to do this!" I was just a little juiced.
Give this a try. It is so worth it. Make it your own and have fun!
