 As President and CEO of Horace Mann, a company founded by educators for educators, I'm proud to honor the five recipients of the Horace Mann Awards for Teaching Excellence. With three sisters, three nieces and now potentially my daughter being teachers, I know some of the challenges they face in the classroom and I hear about the rewards that make it all worth it. Teaching is more than a job. It's a higher calling and a critical role in our society. Teachers mold our future and for these five finalists and many other teachers, the job isn't confined to the classroom. Teachers pick their students up when they're down, give gentle guidance in the right direction, help them find their strength and overcome their weaknesses. They build teaching teams and inspire some of their own students to hear the call to the profession. And it is a noble profession that is frequently underappreciated. At Horace Mann, our mission is protecting the short-term risks and securing the long-term financial future of educators. And we make recognizing teachers a part of what we do. For more than a decade, Horace Mann has sponsored the NEA Foundation Awards for Teaching Excellence because we know how important and deserving it is to shine a light on outstanding teachers who make a difference in their students' lives and who continue to elevate the role. So please join me in congratulating and honoring five individuals who have been singled out by their peers for going above and beyond and becoming this year's Horace Mann Award recipients. Physics! More physics! At Bayfield High School in Bayfield, Wisconsin, Rick Erickson is an accomplished teacher known for a teaching style that is place-based, project-based, and experiential. Huh? Place-based. We learn subject matter by studying the Lake Superior region. Project-based. Rather than learning subject by subject, we incorporate all subjects into a project. Experiential. Instead of only listening and reading about a subject, we learn by doing. He's awesome, right? Seems cool. You're not convinced? Well, I... Here! Listen to this! Mr. Erickson has become an integral part of the school district and the community because of his ability to communicate with anyone. He teaches in the district where three out of four students are high poverty but he always looks at everything with a sliver of opportunity. He opens a window very wide. He steps through and he keeps moving forward. It is phenomenal what he does, both with advanced science students and with the highest risk students in his district. This is his class. Right? That's why things are intergrouped because they have similar chemical behavior. But this is his lab. Lighthouse physics on Raspberry Island. Picking tomatoes at the community garden. Sailing on Lake Superior. I believe that Mr. Erickson excels not only in his teaching profession but in his advocacy for students, parents, and the community. He got a number of students interested in doing independent research projects in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. And he's also been able to have his students come to the park to do a lot of other types of service learning. Working on trails, cleaning beaches, harvesting gardens. Forming relationships and connecting with students is the most important aspect of education. Did you hear that? That's why he's amazing. Wait, why are we talking like this? Because he's unlike any other teacher. So this movie is unlike any other. Oh, okay. So big finish. That's right. Go out with a...