President Obama Honors 2016 Teacher of the Year, Thanks All Educators
President Barack Obama honors the 2016 National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes of Connecticut and finalists during an event in the East Room of the White House on May 3, 2016 . (Photo by Olivier Douliery/Pool/ABACAPRES.COM)
At a White House ceremony coinciding with National Teacher Day on May 3, President Barack Obama honored the 2016 National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes and public school educators everywhere.
“Every year on this day, we say publicly as a country what we should be eager to say every day of the year, and that is: Thank you,” Obama said.
Obama saluted Hayes, a social studies teacher in Waterbury, Connecticut, not only for her talent but for her perseverance. Being a teacher was the furthest thing from her mind when she was growing up. In fact, there were times when Hayes didn’t even want to be a student. As a teenager, Hayes became pregnant and probably would have dropped out of school, but thanks to her teachers she finished her studies.
“Her teachers saw something. They saw something in her,” Obama said. “And they gave her an even greater challenge, and that was to dream bigger and to imagine a better life. And they made her believe she was college material and that she had the special gift to improve not only her own condition, but those around her.”
As a teacher, Hayes understands how and why students bring their own challenging circumstances into the classroom. “She meets them where they are,” Obama continued. ” And she sees a grace in them, and she sees a possibility in them. And because she sees it, they start seeing it. That’s what makes Jahana more than a teacher; she’s a counselor and a confidant. That’s how a woman who became a teenage mom is now a mentor to high schoolers in the same city where she grew up.”
“I know what it feels like to have a dream and exist in an environment where nothing is expected to thrive,” Hayes said. “I know what it feels like to struggle to find sunlight and constantly be met with concrete barriers. I see myself in every one of those students, and I carry my own experiences as a reminder that as a teacher I have to be better.”
As the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, Hayes, whose career as an educator goes back 13 years, will spend a year traveling the nation to represent educators and President Obama Honors 2016 Teacher of the Year:
