Charlottetown language arts teacher honoured for excellence in classroom
'I'm very excited and humbled and thrilled and was very happy to share it with my Birchwood family'
A teacher at Birchwood Intermediate School in Charlottetown is a recipient of the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence.
Frances Ann Squire is a language arts teacher at the school. She said it means "a great deal" to be selected for the national award.
"I'm very excited and humbled and thrilled and was very happy to share it with my Birchwood family," she said.
Squire said the award is a culmination of many years of education, effort and working with young people.
"I love teaching," she said. "Teaching is my passion and I have a dream job. It is what I love to do."
Literal about literacy
Squire was singled out for her emphasis on literacy for lifelong learning.
"Reading and writing and being able to communicate your ideas, it's life really. You have to be literate, and that is very important in life."
She said literacy isn't just important inside a school. "It's a lifelong skill."
Squire emphasizes literacy projects in school.
"Students just finished a research paper on human rights. They had to choose an aspect of human rights and it helped them to become knowledgeable in what's going on in the world around them."
She is even establishing a classroom library.
Getting youth engaged early
Squire also puts the emphasis on community involvement in her classroom. She said students have raised money for the Humane Society, the food bank and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
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With files from Matt Rainnie