A Mountview Elementary School teacher celebrated World Teacher’s Day on Friday at Government House in Victoria with School District 27 officials and also Principal Calvin Williams and Principal Craig Munroe who nominated her for the Premier’s Awards for Excellence in Education.
Despite not being named the winner of the Community Engagement Award, Shelly Peel says it’s been a surreal opportunity and that there are no feelings of disappointment.
“There are so many phenomenal educators in British Columbia. It’s been wonderful to be a part of this,” she said.
“It was never about an award. It’s always been about the kids and the fact that our community comes together in such a phenomenal way that we can have projects where we support one another.”
Superintendent of Schools, Mark Wintjes says they are very pleased to have a nomination come forward from our School District.
“They showed a video clip of each of the nominees that had made it to the shortlisting, and every one of them was absolutely phenomenal so to me if I was sitting on the adjudication of that it would be very difficult to pick a winner because they were all so close and such dynamic teachers and educators,” he said.
“Shelly was the very first video shown and I could see the nerves come up pretty quick, but then when she actually saw the videos of who she was competing against in this nomination she’s just overwhelmed like wow I need to go talk to these other people so I can better my own practice in my own classroom.”
Peel was named as 27 finalists from across the province which was narrowed down from 188 nominees put forward during the April 23 to June 30 nomination period.
“This has been a wonderful event to celebrate the great work that many of our teachers are doing the province and it’s wonderful to be here and support Shelly in the work that she’s done in our district,” said Board of Education Chair, Tanya Guenther.
“The Board is very proud and offer our congratulations to her in being nominated.”
As for what’s planned next for her class in terms of community engagement, Peel says they have a really neat project about to happen with Esk’etemc First Nation.
“When we went to the Orange Shirt Day presentation last year a little boy in my class came up with the idea that we should make drums because we learned about the drumbeat representing the heart and he said we should heal people’s hearts by making people drums who lost their places in the fire,” Peel explains.
“So he took this and ran it with his mom, and we’re going to be linking up with Alkali. Many of the elders have been quite excited about doing this so I’m looking forward to that.”