Carbondale teacher receives Olive Foster Award

Olive Foster "Teacher of the Year" award winner Besty S. Brown (left) and IDNR Police Officer Mark Walcynzski, Annual Meeting banquet speaker, at Starved Rock Lodge.

The winner of the Illinois State Historical Society's 2006 Teacher of the Year Award was announced at the Society's 106th Annual Meeting, held at the Starved Rock Lodge in Utica. Betsy Brown, an instructor in Curriculum and Instruction at Southern Illinois University and Academic Talent Program Teacher for grades 4 and 5 at Lewis Elementary School in Carbondale, received the award and a check for $500 on Saturday, April 29, at the Society's annual Awards Luncheon.

Brown began her teaching career at Parrish Elementary School in Carbondale in 1990, and in 1995 she moved to Carbondale Middle School where she taught Social Studies and Language Arts. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, in 1974; her Bachelor of Science degree from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, in 1995; and her Master of Science degree from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, in August 2001. She has a 4.0 GPA, was on the Dean's List, and is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi Education Honor Society. She has a major in Spanish, Elementary Education, Middle-level Education, and a minor in Sociology.

According to her nomination, Brown has sponsored numerous History Fair Junior Group Performances; was recipient of the Teacher of the Year award from the SIU History Department and PHI Alpha Theta; and earned an appointment to the Education Board for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

In the classroom Brown has developed special units for her students that prepared them for developing performances on Illinois history. In addition to writing history plays for regular and special education students, she developed an oral history project about "The Integration of Carbondale."

"Betsy Brown is a master teacher who brings a limitless enthusiasm to her classes, and has a gift of conveying this sincere enthusiasm about Illinois history to her students," wrote one supporter. "When one looks at the projects that this teacher and her students have done, you will see that her classroom does work with an eye to Illinois history—and often history of the immediate locale."

According to another nominator, Brown goes beyond the classroom by involving the community in her work with students. She recruits local citizens to work in small groups with students on their projects, and she takes her students into neighborhoods to do oral interviews, and research.

"Brown is a credit to the teaching profession," said ISHS Education Chair Mary "Happy" Dean at the award ceremony. "It gives me great pleasure to present her with the Olive Foster Teacher of the Year Award."

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