National Teacher of the Year Committed to Helping Underrepresented Students

We all remember those teachers. The ones who made us believe we could do more than we ever thought we could. While we wish we could honor all of those teachers, one teacher in Maryland is receiving one of the highest honors a teacher can receive—National Teacher of the Year.

Michelle Shearer is a chemistry teacher at Urbana High School. With over 14 years of experience, Shearer believes “there is an aspiring scientist in all of us.” She said she captures students’ attention by making real-life connections to scientific concepts.

Before teaching at Urbana, Shearer taught at the Maryland School for the Deaf where she offered, in American Sign Language, a course in advanced placement chemistry for the first time in the institution’s 135-year history. She wrote on her contest application that when she suggested to her students that they also take AP calculus, they asked, “Why?” She signed back, “Because you can.”

Shearer said she is committed to helping children who have traditionally been underrepresented in science, including those with special needs and minorities. She has worked with students with poor vision, dyslexia, dysgraphia, attention deficit disorder and Asperger’s syndrome in her AP chemistry classes.

Read more about Michelle Shearer at The Washington Post