Some good news!

So this month has had some real doozies for me, losing Mimi, losing my friend Kyle... so it was nice to get some good news last week.  As many of you know, my teaching mountain top has long been a student nominating me for the Teacher of the Month award on Q6.  I mean come on, how many high school teachers are really liked enough by their students to be nominated for that.  That isn't my good news, but I thought it would set a nice tone for this.

Last Tuesday, I got an email from my friend Kathy (executive director of our Washington Journalism Educators Association) asking me if I would let her nominate me for our National JEA Rising Star Award.

She had to ask because I have to answer a massive number of questions and get some recommendations from my administrators.

So after about two seconds of thought, I agreed.  I mean really, how many times in my life will I be nominated for a teaching honor? This is one more then I thought I'd get.  The Rising Star award is a pretty cool one for me.  You have to meet a number of criteria to even be considered:

• Have one to five years’ journalism teaching and/or advising experience.(May be entering the sixth year.)
• Demonstrate a commitment to journalism education.
• Foster an awareness of the rights and responsibilities granted by the First Amendment.
• Seek additional professional development opportunities to improve skills as a journalism adviser/teacher.
• Encourage student editors to attend workshops, conferences and conventions.
• Show commitment to continually improve the medium or media advised.
• Empower student editors to make all editorial decisions in a responsible way without content being subject to prior review.

And really, I'm so flattered that Kathy sees this in me.  So who knows team, this Spring, I may be winging my way down to San Diego to accept one of the Rising Star awards at the Spring JEA Convention.  Wish me luck!