Evanston teacher up for teacher of the year award
Charles Brady, a History teacher at Evanston’s Township High School, is up for a huge honor, teacher of the year. The winner will be announced October 7. Brady was honored with a 2006 Award of Excellence in Teaching from the State Board of Education, along with ten other Illinois teachers.
Brady has a unique way of teaching, certainly one that I was never exposed to. In his 11th-grade History class, students of all different levels participate in “document based questions”, a.k.a., “DBQ’s”. These questions involve knowing how to attack a problem, categorizing and sorting information using examples from history. For instance, Brady asked his class to take off their left shoes and put them in a pile, then think of how many different ways they could categorize them. This led to the teens analyzing whether the American Revolution “had truly represented a sea change from the standpoint of economics, politics and government and the social and cultural climate of the times”.
Brady has found a way to work with his students so they are all understanding what is going on in the classroom and the outside world. He has found a way to connect events from the past with events from the present in ways that will help each student succeed in the real world. Brady definitely deserves the award for teacher of the year.
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