Local Teachers Win National History Award for Teaching

Arlington , Virginia – The Bill of Rights Institute proudly announces the two Second-place winners of the George Washington Prize for Teaching America’s Founding: Lydia Lewis, a teacher at the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., and Brian Corman, a teacher at Merritt Academy in Fairfax, Virginia. They each received $1,000 dollars for their outstanding entries. Emma Humphries, a high school teacher from Middleburg, Florida, won first-place.

All 100 participants in the 2007 Landmarks in American History Summer Workshop for teachers held at Mount Vernon, the home of our first president George Washington, were eligible to enter the contest. Entrants wrote a 500-word essay describing how they benefited from the summer workshop, how their views about Washington changed, and how they would apply their recently gained knowledge to the classroom. They also submitted a lesson plan on a topic addressed at the workshop. The funding for the contest was provided by a grant from Dr. John Templeton.

“The workshop opened my eyes to the depth and complexity of Washington’s character and his influence on the creation of the Constitution,” Corman said of the Workshop.

Lewis wrote of the impact the workshop had on her teaching of American history: “Now I’m set for the year with rich primary source passages…It will be a fun day when I can try the lesson out on my class! The biggest gift to my students is a mentor who is passionate about learning and is excited to share her new knowledge with them.”

The lesson plan submitted by Lewis to the Bill of Rights Institute teaches her fifth grade students about Washington’s “vision and efforts in regard to the creation of a Potomac River ‘highway’ to the West.” Corman encourages middle school students to examine a portrait of George Washington and compare it to portraits of European monarchs of that era.

The three winners of the George Washington Prize come from elementary, middle, and high school. The lesson plans and essays of all winners are posted on the Bill of Rights Institute’s website, www.billofrightsinstitute.org.

The Bill of Rights Institute, in partnership with The National Endowment for the Humanities and George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, offered the week-long summer workshop for educators, entitled Shaping the Constitution: A View from Mount Vernon. K-12 educators from around the country explored the role Mount Vernon played as a meeting place for prominent intellectuals of the era, and how the ideas discussed at Washington’s home shaped the Constitution and the future the United States. In the past four years, nearly 500 teachers have participated in the program.

For more information on the George Washington Prize winners or the Bill of Rights Institute’s Landmarks in American History summer workshop, contact Claire Griffin, at 1-800-838-7870, ex. 14.

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