 Educators like Rick Erickson deserve our utmost gratitude for all that they do every day to help their students learn. Every year we honor public school educators for instructional excellence, advocacy for the profession, and attention to diversity with the NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence. Listen to what Rick has to say about his experience, learn how students benefit, and prepare to be inspired. When my state affiliate president informed me that I was being nominated for the NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence, I was very excited and very honored. The opportunity to fill out the application form and to go through the interview process gave me a great opportunity to reflect on my 30-year teaching career, and that was very exciting. It also was very exciting to know that I was representing a lot of my colleagues and very excellent teachers across the country. We stand on the shoulders of giants. We really have a lot of people to thank for helping to develop who we are and maybe more than anybody, our students. I mean our students have really shaped who we are as teachers and developed us over our careers. It's important for our students to learn about their own culture, but it's also important for our students to learn about other cultures. It's a very important aspect of education and the NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence along with the Global Learning Fellowship provides that opportunity, not only for the teachers, but then for us also to bring it back to the students to learn about other cultures. Bringing students to another culture, bringing students to Siberia for some students who have never been out of the state of Wisconsin and to travel across the world and to go to a place like Siberia and to watch them learn, to watch them experience what's out there is just an amazing feeling. I mean I love the camaraderie also. I love my teaching colleagues. They're great people. It's just a very important job. Public education is crucial to our society. It's a pillar of our society and it has to remain strong. And the NEA Foundation has an opportunity through these awards to recognize that commitment to public education and a commitment to public school teachers. Every NEA state affiliate has until May 1st to nominate a public school educated for this prestigious national award. All awardees are invited to join the NEA Foundation Global Learning Fellowship. This 10-month professional development opportunity provides educators with the knowledge and skills to prepare their students to thrive in our flat world. Find out more information about the awards, the fellowship and the NEA Foundation at NEAFoundation.org.