Margaret McCullough’s classroom can be a pretty noisy place, but that’s just the way she likes it for her students.
“Sometimes it’s chaotic, but it’s fun chaos, it’s positive chaos.” she said. “They learn by experience.”
The Grade 6 and 7 science teacher at Glenlyon Norfolk School is one of 35 winners from across the country — and the only one from Victoria — to receive a 2014 Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence. Other Vancouver Island teachers on the list are Doug David from Puntledge Park Elementary School in Courtenay and Katrina Kornylo from Gold River Secondary School.
The awards, now in their 21st year, honour outstanding teachers who create a love of learning while equipping students for the future. Recognition is also given in the field of early childhood education.
Glenlyon Norfolk School held a special event Friday at its Bank Street campus to honour McCullough, who stresses hands-on learning to her students with a focus on environmental issues. She said she strives to “empower them to make a difference.”
“That’s sort of my key philosophy, to take the knowledge that they have and then go and do something with it.”
One thing she is passionate about and shares with her students is the international Fin Free movement, which promotes the conservation of sharks through such measures as stopping the use of shark fins.
McCullough said efforts to get shark-fin soup off local menus have been successful. “We got all the restaurants here to stop selling it.”
Along the way, students made presentations to municipal councils and other groups about the cause, and they are now involved in an effort to have shark-fin sales banned at the provincial level.
Victoria MP Murray Rankin has taken their message to Ottawa, and spoke at the gathering for McCullough.
Jake Burnett, middle school principal at Glenlyon Norfolk, described McCullough as one of those teachers who students look back on with fondness.
“She doesn’t follow a textbook,” Burnett said. “She’s a real non-conformist. She’ll take things in a different direction.”
McCullough is just the latest in a streak of capital region educators to earn the honour.
Mount Douglas Secondary School teacher Adrian French won a Prime Minister’s teaching award in 2013, while there were three local winners in 2012 — Miriam Vos-Guenter from Belmont Secondary School, Kristy Kilpatrick from Lansdowne Middle School and Barry Edward Janzen from Mount Douglas.
