McBroom named AZ Rural Schools Teacher of the Year
Local teacher will travel to Texas next year
Amy McBroom might not be a teacher today - much less Arizona Rural Schools Association's Teacher of the Year - if not for, of course, an educator. The inspirational message was that a teaching certificate could keep an artist from starving.
"None of it has ever been planned," she said of her teaching career, which spans more than 15 years, all in rural schools. "I never said I was going to be some thing. I look at it, grab it, shake it for what it's worth, then just go."
In looking at everything from the perspective of what it can teach, she's been able to provide bold, new opportunities for students. In Leupp, she used art sales to build bridges between rival gangs. At Grand Canyon, she's organized art trips to Europe and Washington, D.C., an annual juried art show at Kolb Studio and her insistence that students don't just make art but that they know how to present it and make portfolios as well so that it can take them to places like college.
"There have been kids who in their freshman year of high school, people would have written them off, saying they're not doing anything, they're stubborn," she said. "It's hard if you're not certain which key to unlock the door with. Sometimes I don't know if I'm doing anything positive but down the road, sometimes somebody comes back and says I did this or that. It's kind of nice."
She grew up in Phoenix and started college at Arizona State University, attending three semesters before dropping out. After some time in upstate New York, she returned and earned a bachelors of fine arts degree in printmaking and a secondary education certificate from Northern Arizona University.
She did her student teaching in Sedona and held her first teaching job in Jeddito near Second Mesa. After a year there, she moved to Leupp, a Bureau of Indian Affairs charter school, where she stayed seven years. She has been at Grand Canyon for eight.
School Superintendent Sheila Breen nominated McBroom, who then had to fill out an application and complete essays. After her selection at the Coconino County level, she emerged in the top five in the state. The finalists appeared before an eight-member panel to be interviewed. Meeting her fellow finalists made her feel a little awed, she said.
"I was like, no way. I saw the caliber of people, these are just incredible people," she said. "I felt proud to be seen as the same stature as the other four."
The top teacher receives $1,000 from the O'Malley Foundation and $100 from Aflac, as well as a plaque. The Arizona Rural Schools Association will pay to send her to a national rural schools conference in San Antonio, Texas, in November of 2009.
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