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Aimée Burgamy has been named one of five finalists in the first annual Great American Teacher Awards.
Gwinnett County middle school art teacher and UGA alumna Aimée Burgamy has been named one of five finalists in the first annual Great American Teacher Awards.
Burgamy has taught art at Trickum Middle School in Lilburn for five years and serves as lead teacher of 25 middle school art teachers in Gwinnett. She is the only Georgia teacher and only art teacher among the finalists. The award will be presented Friday night (Oct. 23) during the Ron Clark Academy’s National Educators’ Conference in Atlanta.
Burgamy was selected Gwinnett County Teacher of the Year in November 2008 and was named National Art Honor Society Sponsor of the Year by the National Art Education Association in April 2009.
She received her Ph.D. in art education from UGA in May 2009.
“Above all else my graduate experience made me think deeply about my core belief about the true nature of teaching and learning, and to turn that conceptualization about my professional goals into teaching strategies that really work,” she said.
Burgamy said she sees the award as an opportunity to advocate for the visual and performing arts during a time of economic hardships, wherein budget cuts often begin with the discontinuation of fine arts programs.
Ron Clark, founder of the Ron Clark Academy, and Aimée Burgamy
Prior to attending UGA, her academic background was in studio art and art history. She previously taught Advanced Placement art at Montgomery (Ala.) Academy, where her students scored in the top 15 percent nationally, and at the University of Alabama, Auburn University, the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the Mississippi Museum of Art, the University of Georgia, and Oglethorpe University. She received her master’s in art from the University of Alabama and her bachelor’s in art from the University of Mississippi.
Other finalists include:
Leslie Nicholas – A middle school language arts teacher from Kingston, Pa., who after 27 years of teaching high school journalism, asked to be moved to the middle school in order to help raise slumping test scores. Nicholas is a member of the National Teacher's Hall of Fame and was the Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year in 2004.
Todd “Hoss” McNutt – A middle school and high school robotics teacher from Porterville, Calif., whose students built prosthetic devices for a classmate who was born without hands, along with numerous other service-oriented projects.
Terri Norwood – A primary school teacher from Los Angeles, Calif., who creates songs about grammar, tap dances around the room, dresses up as numerous literary characters, and does whatever it takes to inspire her students. Norwood started her own non-profit where she works with students on Saturdays in order to improve reading skills.
George Hademenos – A high school physics teacher from Richardson, Texas, who left his job as a staff scientist with the American Heart Association in order to use his talents in the classroom. Over the past five years his students have had a 100 percent pass rate on the TAKS exam.
The Great American Teacher Awards are presented by the Ron Clark Academy. Using a pre-determined and standard rubric, a team of education leaders read and scored the applications, resulting in the selection of 20 semi-finalists, representing 10 different states across the U.S. The applications of the semi-finalists were then culled to five finalists.
Each of the five national finalists receive an all-expense paid round-trip to Atlanta for the finalist and a guest to attend the Ron Clark Academy’s National Educators’ Conference on October 23-25, and special recognition at the Awards Gala held at The W Atlanta Midtown Hotel.
The awards ceremony will be videostreamed live on Friday, Oct. 23 from 9-10 p.m. EDT on the Florida Education Channel at: www.fec.tv.
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