Clarkstown South Educator Wins Teaching Champion Award

The Council for Economic Education has chosen three teachers in the region with the Alfred P. Sloan Teaching Champion Awards for excellence in economics education.

CEE officials said the winners demonstrate innovative teaching methods, lesson plans and learning strategies.

The winning teachers are:

Amanda Tombari, Clarkstown South High School, West Nyack, NY

Kathleen O’Hagan, P.S. 97/The Highlawn School, Brooklyn, NY

Darren Gurney, New Rochelle High School, New Rochelle, NY

Here’s what the CEE had to say about Tombari:

Amanda Tombari, a 12th grade teacher at Clarkstown South High School, cites “keeping it real” as her primary strategy for engaging students, relating economic content to their own lives. She has taken a particular interest in working with special needs students and has encouraged them to take her general Economics course. Working alongside a Special Education teacher, she modifies the assignments and incorporates different strategies to help them learn basic economic concepts such as cost-benefit analysis. Her students also learn about important economic concepts by developing a product to be sold for charity, tasking them with the responsibility of finding a producer, marketing the item and determining a price strategy.

The three will receive the Sloan Award at CEE’s annual Visionary Awards gala in the fall. The honorees will each receive a $5,000 prize, and their school will receive a cash award of $2,500 to support economic and financial education.

What’s more, they will also be offered the opportunity to share best practices with their colleagues by co-facilitating a training workshop for area teachers and sharing their best lessons with teachers nationwide through CEE’s online assets.

“We applaud these outstanding teachers for their innovation and dedication to making economic concepts come alive for their students,” said Nan J. Morrison, CEE President and CEO. “We hope that by bringing awareness to their achievements, these educators will serve as inspiration for their fellow teachers to bring economics and financial literacy to every classroom.”

About the Council for Economic Education

The Council for Economic Education (CEE) is the leading organization in the United States that focuses on the economic and financial education of students from kindergarten through high school—and we have been doing so for 65 years. CEE delivers the fourth “R”—a real-world understanding of how to build fruitful lives—to America’s young people. Our goal is to reach and teach every child to create a more informed citizenry capable of making better decisions as savers, investors, borrowers, voters and participants in the global economy. We do this by educating the educators: providing the curriculum tools, the pedagogical support, and the community of peers that instruct, inspire, and guide. All resources and programs are developed by educators, and delivered by our national network of affiliates—over 240 across the country. Last year, we trained more than 55,000 teachers; those teachers, in turn, we estimate, reached 5 million students.

www.councilforeconed.org

About the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grantmaking institution based in New York City. Established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-President and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors, the Foundation makes grants in support of original research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economic performance. The Alfred P. Sloan Teaching Champion Awards are funded through the Foundation’s Civic Initiatives program, which aims to benefit the New York City metropolitan area in ways that advance the Foundation’s mission. www.sloan.org.

PHOTO: Amanda Tombari/courtesy Council for Economic Education