 Teachers deserve our utmost gratitude for all that they do every day to improve the future of our students. Every year we honor outstanding educators for instructional excellence and advocacy for the teaching profession with the NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence. Guided by a distinguished national panel, we selected five educators from a pool of state nominees for this prestigious national award. Listen to what they have to say about their experience. Learn how students benefit from the program and prepare to be inspired. This award is letting me as an American teacher experience the prestige that I think a teacher in Finland might routinely receive. I am seen as expert. I am seen as knowledgeable. I am valued. And that is good for my kids. So when we celebrate, we also uplift all the other teachers around the nation. So I believe that the award is crucial for the advancement of our profession. And I also think it's a calling card for the brightest and the best in our nation to join us in our profession. The awards help advance our profession by really allowing a group of teacher leaders from around the country come together in ways that enhance collaboration and help look at education from a global perspective. You can tell that these teachers are creative and innovative that they think hard about their craft. They understand it's a craft. And these awards are a way to showcase what five teachers do. They also just really bring people to the forefront of what is being done as far as innovation, as far as leadership within the association, and put a spotlight on that and be able to learn from others and honor the work that they're doing. I think it's really important for us as teachers to be involved in our local association. I have been conducting numerous outreach programs through my local association in my community and in the state of Connecticut as well. In doing so, I've put our local association forward. It requires me to do some professional reflection, to do investigations about what does and does not work in my classroom. And the most important thing is it's already within a matter of months has impacted how I teach my students. Then there's the training. And I am finding the habits of mind that are encompassed in the global competencies to be exactly what my kids need and that my discipline requires. Investigating, recognizing the perspectives of others, communicating clearly and truthfully, and then lastly the cool part, taking action. A sense of efficacy in the world. Teens need that. They deserve that. My first-hand knowledge and experience of China is going to improve my ability to talk about it. Giving my students the opportunity to understand not just China, but how their world is interconnected and interdependent upon a variety of different countries, cultures throughout the world. You don't empower young people by praising them or gold stars or points. You empower them by making them competent and making them effective out in the world. Those are global competencies. Okay, how cool is that? That is the reason we have public education. Public education is about an informed and active citizenry.