Mantua – Angus McDougall, a teacher at Crestwood High School, has been named the 2018 Ohio History Teacher of the Year, an award presented annually by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to K-12 American history education.
Inaugurated in 2004, the History Teacher of the Year Award highlights the crucial importance of history education by honoring exceptional American history teachers from elementary school through high school. The award honors one K-12 teacher from each state, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense schools and US Territories. In fall 2018, the National History Teacher of the Year will be selected from the pool of state winners.
This May, Mr. McDougall received his master’s degree in American History and Government at Ashland University. His thesis, Squatters, Congress, and the Settling of Ohio 1780-1787, was honored with the Chairman’s Award for outstanding original historical work. McDougall’s passion for intense historical analysis and hands-on experiences have been combined in his American Experience Academy classroom, and his students have reaped the benefits. He creates a classroom atmosphere in which history is not only learned but lived. The Academy students at Crestwood share this knowledge every year with students from James A. Garfield and Streetsboro during a living history program that is now in its eighth year. When students leave his classroom they have not only learned valuable information, they have become engaged, informed and active citizens.
In addition to a $1,000 honorarium and an award ceremony in Ohio, Mr. McDougall’s school library will receive a core archive of American history books and Gilder Lehrman educational materials. Mr. McDougall will also receive an invitation to a 2019 Gilder Lehrman Teacher Seminar, a weeklong program that offers teachers daily discussions with eminent historians, visits to historic sites, and hands-on work with primary sources.
The National History Teacher of the Year award will be presented by Professor Edward Ayers at a ceremony in New York City on October 10, 2018. Past presenters at the ceremony include the Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, First Lady Laura Bush, former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
