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	Last updated 12/12/03

The NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence

2003 Recipient of The NEA Foundation
Award for Teaching Excellence

Tommy O'Briant Freeman, II
North Carolina Association of Educators

Since 1994, Brian Freeman has taught elementary school in rural Robeson County. One day playing the Nutty Professor, another day, Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, he challenges his second graders to learn while creating magical, high-energy settings. Last year his students read nearly 7,000 books. During one of their reading units, Celebrity Adventures with Flat Stanley, students received responses and gifts from over twenty well-known entertainment and sports figures and a visit from North Carolina’s First Lady, Mary Easley. His students designed a homemade quilt depicting symbols from their hometown, county, and state for First Lady Easley. The quilt is now on loan to the North Carolina Museum of History for all citizens to enjoy. This outstanding project led him to be named the 2002 National SDE Second Grade Teacher of the Year.

“I will do whatever it takes to make sure my students are inspired to learn and challenged to excel,” he says.

Mr. Freeman designs his classroom activities to reach students’ multiple learning styles. Any one lesson may involve reading, drawing, singing, writing, and even dancing salsa steps.

Mr. Freeman has received several awards for outstanding teaching and community involvement, including the District Teacher of the Year, a state finalist honor for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching, North Carolina’s Jiffy Lube Teaching Excellence Award, and the WBTW-TV 13 Golden Apple Award. He has twice been named one of the top forty teachers in the nation by USA Today, when he was named to their Second All-USA teacher team. A creative family partnership that he established called “Second Grade Success Easy as P.I.E." (Partners in Education), which helps to explain the state objectives for the second-grade curriculum and offers at-home strategies to reinforce classroom learning, was featured in the national newspaper.

“The most important role a teacher plays in the community is that of ambassador for public education,” emphasizes Mr. Freeman.

As an elected town commissioner for his hometown, he is always that ambassador—whether serving as an assistant judge for local, state, and national elections, raising money for homeless and needy children through Project Pencil Box, or volunteering with the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Commission and UNC-Pembroke Alumni Board.

One of Mr. Freeman’s proudest professional moments came when he and a colleague received an Innovation Grant from The NEA Foundation, which they used to launch a unique project to encourage intergenerational creative writing.

Mr. Freeman believes, “I owe my success as a classroom teacher and leader to the NEA and its affiliates.”

He works on the school’s Literacy Team, which wrote and received an almost $1 million Reading Excellence Act grant to provide an after-school tutorial and summer reading camp for at-risk K–2 students. This funding allowed his school to develop what is now the state’s premier literacy resource center with over 60,000 leveled texts, supplemental materials, and professional resources.

A former president and two-term treasurer of the Robeson Association of Educators, Mr. Freeman has worked to increase association membership and employee supplements, and improve communication with the board of education. He credits workshops sponsored by the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) with helping him to become a National Board Certified Teacher. He has been awarded NCAE’s highest honor, The Terry Sanford Award for Creativity in Teaching and Administration. He shares his professional knowledge and experiences by conducting workshops for NCAE members across the state.

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