Letter: Prospect Sierra Teacher Needs Your Votes As Semi-Finalist in National Teaching Contest

By Madeleine Rogin

I am a Kindergarten Teacher at Prospect Sierra School and was recently nominated to be a finalist in the national teaching contest: the Great American Teach-off.

Thank you again for sharing the story about the Great American Teach-off a few weeks ago on your site. I wanted to let you know that now there are four teachers left in the contest, and I am still in the running!

It would be great if you could update the El Cerrito Patch readers, letting them know that voting ends April 7 and we are currently in the semi-final round, which ends this Sunday, March 31 at midnight.

Monday, April 1, we find out which two teachers make it to the final round of two! The winner and receiver of the $10,000 classroom grant is announced on April 8.

If we win, we plan to use the money to help restore a local frog habitat at Canyon Trail Park as well as to partner with an elementary school in Ghana.

The current videos that are up on the voting site are endorsements from parents and colleagues. After watching them all, I realize what makes our project unique is that we are about local and global service, about teaching our students how to be engaged, global citizens who feel a sense of responsibility about taking care of the environment and standing up for what they believe in.

We also want our students to develop their cultural competency skills, which includes skills around communicating across differences. With the Ghana project, our students will be skyping with students and teachers in Ghana and developing their ability to understand cultural differences and to communicate across these differences.

Cultural competency is as important as the "core" academic subjects, as in our new global reality our children are growing up in a world where they will be expected to communicate with people from all around the globe.