Announcing the Winners of the 2015 Master Teacher Fellowship in Global Education!
The Middle East Center and South Asia Center are pleased to announce this year's winners of the Master Teacher Fellowship in Global Education: Danielle Heeney of Penn Treaty School and Sarah L. Sharp of William Penn Charter School. Congratulations!
Danielle Heeney was born and raised in Philadelphia among a family of teachers. She has been a special education teacher in the Philadelphia School District for ten years and is now the Special Education Liaison at Penn Treaty School. In the last ten years, she has had the opportunity to work with students with learning, emotional/behavioral, intellectual disabilities and autism. The growth and progress of her students has inspired her to keep learning, both in the classroom and out. She is pursuing a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Management with a concentration in Special Education as part of the Urban Special Education Leaders of Tomorrow (USELT) project. Heeney takes advantage of school breaks by traveling, her other great passion. For example, she has participated in two Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad in Ethiopia and Morocco. She earned her TESOL certification in Ecuador, completed a special education course in Malaysia, and led teacher training in Ghana. She enjoys learning about other places and cultures and brings these experiences back to classroom.
Sarah L. Sharp is a social studies teacher in the upper school at William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, where she teaches 9th, 11th, and 12th grades. Over the past decade, she began to travel internationally on a regular basis, taking a trip every other year or so. Her hope has been that she would move well beyond what she could read, and bring home new awareness to energize her teaching and understanding of global citizenship. Trips to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, as well as to Cuba, have formed the foundation for her courses in Global Studies. She has used both blogging and photography, among other media, to create class projects and exhibits. Ms. Sharp holds a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, where she specialized in U.S. and Latin American history.
The Master Teacher Fellowship in Global Education is awarded annually to two K-14 teachers in the Delaware Valley who have shown substantial commitment to incorporating global studies into the school or classroom. Each fellow will receive a $500 stipend to be used for conference/training registration, travel to a conference/training, or classroom materials. The Master Teacher Fellows will also serve as ambassadors for the Centers from April 2015 - April 2016 and lead one public workshop for pre-service and current educators.