Megan Brady Named Teacher Of The Year In Fanwood

FANWOOD, NJ — Megan Brady has been named Teacher of the Year by Goddard School in Fanwood. This is the 11th annual “Teacher of the Year” awards program by The Goddard School. Brady was only one of four National Teachers of the Year out of more than 10,000 teachers throughout the Goddard Systems franchise.

Brady “brought valuable contributions to the classroom and the community in order to achieve this high honor,” the school wrote in a release.

Brady was specifically honored for her work in creating a journalism program to help her students investigate a variety of careers.

Each month, Brady invited two visitors to the classroom, each with a career related to a specific theme. The children met a flight attendant, a lawyer, an editor, a photographer, an animal protection provider, a publisher and a nutritionist.

Before each visit, the children prepared questions for the guest interview, and during each visit, the responses were logged. These tasks mirror the responsibilities of journalists.

The students learned about open-ended and close-ended questions and about occupations in the journalism field. The students often mimicked these interesting roles.

The culmination of the project is a video montage of the broadcasts the children created that will be shown on graduation day. The broadcast will feature the children as news anchors, and they will discuss all the relevant Goddard news from the year.

“I studied journalism in college and when I graduated I had an opportunity to study abroad and serve as an English teaching assistant in Germany,” Brady said. “When I was teaching I fell in love with it and discovered my next passion.”

Her project in the Goddard School was a perfect combination of her two passions — journalism and teaching.

“I am feel so validated I guess because I worked so hard this year with my kids and they have grown so much,” Brady said of being named Teacher of the Year. “It is rewarding and shows that hard work really pays off.”

(Image provided: Megan Brady)

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