Excellent Educators is a WAVY-TV 10 initiative to celebrate local teachers who have gone above and beyond for their students and communities during the coronavirus pandemic. These Excellent Educators were nominated by their school divisions. Congratulations to these educators for all of their hard work and accomplishments!
Name: Becky Austin
Division: Dare County Schools
Position: Second grade teacher at Manteo Elementary School
What the school division said about this Excellent Educator: Becky Austin is a teacher who loves her students and her second grade team. She would tell you herself that all good ideas worth implementing come from a team of teachers working together for the love of all kids.
She understands how important “time with the teacher” is daily so that she can foster these relationships with each of her students. In order to keep them engaged, she had daily class meetings where she had a “secret” word of the day. Students had to send her the “word of the day” every day, and to her excitement, they did just that. Her attendance during remote learning was exceptional, and she gives credit to the daily parent communication applications, like Seesaw, and the weekly parent checklists.
In order to keep the student relationships strong, she opened herself up to hours outside of the normal bell schedule. The second grade team decided to keep the students connected to real-time events, like when they wrote journals about the history of the balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. They also created a choice board where they worked on writing their first historical biography during Black History Month. Not to mention that on Valentine’s Day they sent digital messages to all of their classmates through the use of Jam Board.
Austin holds high expectations for her all of her students, but knows that you must reach the child’s whole heart before you can reach the child’s whole mind. She did not let remote learning stand in the way of building relationships and shaping the minds of our future leaders.