Immediately after being “surprise bombed” with a Golden Apple Award on Wednesday, South Loop Elementary School fourth grade teacher Helen Chan, tried her hardest not to get choked up.
“I really don’t want to start crying,” Chan said, with tears halfway down her face. “I want to thank you for all the support that I have received, especially from my students. I feel like you guys give me 100% every single day and you’re like my little cheerleaders every day.”
Chan and her co-worker Rick Coppola, a seventh grade teacher at South Loop Elementary, were among the 10 Illinois recipients of the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching. Alan Mather, president of the Golden Apple Foundation, said it was a first for the foundation to have two teachers from the same school win the same year. The winners were awarded $5,000 and a free spring sabbatical provided by Northwestern University.
Since 1985, the Golden Apple Award has been given to educators who have shown dedication to their students and school communities. This year, more than 570 fourth- to eighth-grade teachers were nominated for the prize, according to the Golden Apple Foundation. At the surprise school visits, the foundation gathers the winners’ friends, families and colleagues to share in the celebration.
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Mather said the annual awards are immensely fun to put together, despite the long process of selecting 10 winners out of hundreds, which includes sending judges to each school to observe the classrooms and interview students, parents and administrators.
“I think it’s two things. One is just the surprise — the excitement on the faces of the recipients, but I think kind of the bigger deal here is how students respond,” Mather said. “Seeing them really sort of giving the love to teachers and principals that serve them is pretty special.”
Andrea Woods, a fourth grade teacher at Big Hollow Elementary School in Ingleside, said she was completely blindsided by her win.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Woods said she was paired with a new student teacher to mentor, while at the same time, she was caring for her father who was diagnosed with cancer. Within the span of a few weeks, Woods’ father died.
“And what got me through was my faith. I have a very, very deep and strong faith. And seeing the faces of my kids in my mind and in my heart,” Woods said. “When you become a teacher — these children leave an imprint on your heart that’s like no other. And they are the reason you keep going.”
Winning teachers also become Fellows of the Golden Apple Academy of Educators, a community of educators who help prepare the next generation of teachers in the Golden Apple Scholars and Accelerators programs, which are dedicated to addressing the teacher shortage in Illinois, Mather said. And part of the award process involves past winners observing the classrooms of new nominees.
Coppola said when he switched to a career in teaching, one of his mentors was a past winner.
“I was like, oh, seems like a good goal. Maybe one day — I’ll set that as a star to reach,” Coppola said.
At an assembly following Coppola and Chan’s surprise, students of all grades huddled around the two in applause and cheers that could be heard outside the gymnasium.
“My brain and my heart cannot hold all the love I am seeing in the audience,” Coppola said. “I got in the game of teaching to have an impact. I wanted to create a world I imagined, but was not yet realized.”
Other winners in the Chicago area include Rachel Werderits, a sixth grade teacher at St. Andrew School, who was known for leaving hopeful messages with sidewalk chalk outside students’ homes during the pandemic. The final winner in the Chicago area will be named Thursday.
Kimetrice Tate, a fifth grade teacher at International Prep Academy in Champaign; Chelsea Young, a fifth grade teacher at Woodland Elementary School in Joliet; Sabrina Gooden, a fourth grade teacher at Carterville Intermediate School in Carterville; and Scott Saffer, a sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade teacher at Tri-Point Upper Elementary/Junior High in Piper City were also named winners.
Anquineice Brown, a fourth grade teacher at Marquette Elementary School in Chicago Lawn was sitting on the classroom carpet with a couple of students when the Golden Apple folks swung through the side door, followed by her husband and her three kids, and students with a big sign and pom poms.
“My head just dropped into my hands,” Brown said. “I looked up in the room was filled with people — and the one student that was sitting on the side of me was such a sweetheart, he literally wrapped his arm around me and just stroked my back like ‘it’s OK, congratulations, Mrs. Brown.'”
The relationship she has with her students is what she holds most sacred, Brown said.
“We can have those moments together and we’re going to be there for one another, whether it’s disappointment or happiness,” she said. “One of the things we say in our morning affirmation is ‘when I succeed, you succeed.’ And so this isn’t something that I did, it was something that we did together.”