A local teacher is one of the top ten finalists for a global teaching award that’s considered by some to be like the Nobel Prize for teachers.
Breanna Heels is Vice-Principal at Bruce Peninsula District School in Lion’s Head, and she’s up for the Varkey Foundation’s $1 million Global Teacher Prize.
The prize’s website says finalists are selected from among over 8,000 nominees and applications from 121 countries.
explaining the prize recognizes, “One exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession as well as to shine a spotlight on the important role teachers play in society.”
A bio on Heels on the prize organization’s website says she first developed a passion for teaching from a global perspective while training for her Bachelor of Education on international trips in East Africa and Ecuador, and later in 2016 to the Arctic Svalbard. It says those trips sparked an interest in the environment, cultural history, sustainability and global citizenship. Heels is a National Geographic Certified Educator and also a Geo-Inquiry Ambassador for Canadian Geographic.
Heels has based her teaching methods on the UN Global Goals, with the philosophy of ‘think globally, act locally.’
The Prize organization says the philosophy that the world is a classroom encouraged students to organize a number of initiatives, including a Fight for Girls run to promote gender equality, a food drive to aid the UN Global Goal of zero hunger, and a social media campaign to raise awareness about poverty in Canada.
Inspired by her own students’ work, Heels invented the Changemaker Classroom where each month classes from around the world complete challenges that work towards a different UN Global Goal. Heels sends a monthly email to teachers with resources and teaching ideas to help guide classes in learning about a UN Global Goal.
According to the Global Teacher Prize organization, there are now 140 classrooms participating in the scheme.
In addition, Heels takes students out onto the Bruce Trail and to Bruce Peninsula National Park to do geocaching, learn about forestry, their rural heritage and the local Indigenous communities.
Heels has presented workshops within the Bluewater school board about connecting students to the world, experiential learning and inquiry and has led initiatives to get more classes involved in sustainability initiatives.
She has made presentations before the Ontario Teachers Federation, Ontario Association of Geography and Environment Educators, Canadian Geographic, National Geographic and Google as a participant and presenter in hackathons.
The prize was created in 2015. So far, winners have been from the United States, Palestine, Canada, the United Kingdom, Kenya and India.
The winner is scheduled to be announced in November.