CdA teacher up for national award
Teaching has always been a part of Jean Robinson’s life, but it wasn’t until after she earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from Idaho State University that she got the inkling to do it professionally.
She was four-wheeling around Pocatello with some friends, explaining the geology of the area. “They were going, ‘You should go into teaching,’ ” Robinson said.
She did. Twenty years later, the seventh- and eighth-grade science teacher at Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy is one of two finalists for the national Hilda E. Taylor Teacher Award, sponsored by the JASON Project, an organization dedicated to math and science education for middle school students.
Only teachers who use JASON Project curricula – about 20,000 in the United States do, according to the organization – are eligible for the award. A seventh-grade teacher in Wisconsin is the other finalist.
Robinson will travel to Washington, D.C., next week with her 15-year-old son, Brandon, to attend the award ceremony July 19.
A finalist for Idaho’s Teacher of the Year award in 2000, Robinson has taught seventh- and eighth-grade science at the academy for six years, spending the first 11 years of her career at a middle school in Pocatello.
She said the hands-on approach to teaching that the JASON Project encourages blends well with her own teaching style. She spends most of her class time leading labs with students. She won’t even hand out a textbook until about six weeks into a class, she said.
“Of course, we can’t take the kids to Mars, but we can bring it to them,” Robinson said.
Though she didn’t always know she wanted to teach, looking back, it’s obvious where her interest came from, she said.
“Way back when, I had teachers that always thought that’s where I should go,” she said.
Robinson served as student teacher in fifth grade and during her senior year of high school. Her advanced placement English and biology teachers at Fargo North High School in Fargo, N.D., were each named national teacher of the year in their subjects.
“So there’s a couple of big influences right there,” she said.
Robinson is spending the week with other members of the Idaho Earth Science Teachers Association studying the geological effects of the Missoula floods.
“I’ve got a front seat of rocks that I brought home,” she said. “My husband’s shaking his head going, ‘No. More rocks?’ “
The winner of the award will be given $1,000 to buy JASON Project curriculum material. Named after a teacher who died on the airplane that terrorists crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, the award has been given every year since 2002.
Last year’s winner was a science teacher from a Catholic school in Grapevine, Texas.