Teacher of the Year. An award given to a teacher who has shown that they can productively educate their students each day, and help to improve the overall atmosphere and learning experience for their students. It’s not unusual to see an experienced teacher earn the recognition from their fellow faculty, and Ms. Brickhouse is definitely not a stranger to working in the classroom. Throughout her 30 years of teaching experience, Ms. Gale Brickhouse taught for ten years at Jordan Matthews High School before coming to Northwood in 2009.
“I won Teacher of the Year while I was teaching at Jordan Matthews, so it isn’t the first time, but it is always an honor,” Ms. Brickhouse said.
Ms. Brickhouse is the Agriculture Science and Animal Science teacher here at Northwood. She is also an advisor for Northwood’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) club, which gives students an opportunity to compete in a variety of areas of the many agriculture fields.
When it comes down to deciding which teacher should be awarded Teacher of the Year, each nominated teacher must write about a prompt of their choice. This prompt helps showcase what each teacher might have to offer or why they started teaching in the first place and what they love most about teaching at Northwood. These prompts are read by their fellow teachers who help decide which teacher they think has done the best job and created a unique learning experience. Ms. Brickhouse’s prompt in particular surrounds rediscovering her “why,” as in why she started teaching and why she is still teaching.
“My main reason why [I teach] is that I really want to make an impact on my students’ lives,” Brickhouse said.
Teaching classes that revolve around agriculture allows for the classroom setting and the subject matter to vary. One of Ms. Brickhouse’s favorite aspects of teaching agriculture at Northwood is the fact that she is given the space that allows her students to have a truly unique opportunity in class. Being allowed to have the space outside of the classroom for a variety of animals, greenhouse work and shop work is key to allowing her students to have a unique hands-on experience.
“I have shown the students here that there are other opportunities, because when kids sign up for agriculture, they think it’s just farming and it’s not,” Brickhouse said. “The agriculture industry today is very diverse, so it could lead to being a future doctor, scientist or engineer just from taking an agriculture class.”
Ms. Brickhouse is very dedicated to bringing the deeper meaning of agriculture to the forefront of her teaching style. Her goal is to inform her students, so they understand the many possibilities and careers that are available to them in the future.
“It’s always great to see my former students follow in my footsteps as they go into an agriculture program in college or like one of my students who now teaches agriculture at a middle school in Lee County,” Brickhouse said. “It always validates my feelings that I’m doing a good job, because they see that there is a need for them.”
-By Colin Revels
