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	Last updated 1.3.05

The NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence

2004 Finalist and Recipient of The Horace Mann–
NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence

Keil E. Hileman, II
Kansas NEA (KNEA)

Keil E. Hileman, II is a middle school history teacher at Monticello Trails Middle School in Shawnee, Kansas. For over 12 years, Mr. Hileman has turned an ordinary middle school topic into something extraordinary.

Mr. Hileman’s classroom is a student-driven museum containing over 20,000 teaching artifacts for students to examine, touch, and study. These unique teaching tools bring history to life for his students and provide a concrete way to “connect them to the past and prepare them for the future. The museum is the center of many instructional strategies because it allows me to connect and reach all of my students.” Mr. Hileman encourages his students to reach out to the community through museum and history nights, service projects, artifact restoration, guest speakers, and field trips. These programs engage all levels of student learning, interests, and backgrounds.

Mr. Hileman is the 2004 Kansas Teacher of the Year as well as one of four finalists for National Teacher of the Year. He also received the Teacher’s Touching the Future—EPCOT/ Celebration School Tour, the NEC Award for Education Technology Excellence, the De Soto Risk Taker Award in 1997 and 2002, and a De Soto Education Foundation Special Museum Projects Grant. In summer 2004, Mr. Hileman was selected by the U.S. Department of Education to travel across the United States with the Teacher to Teacher Initiative.

As a graduate student, Mr. Hileman joined the National Education Association (NEA) and KNEA and has been active in both organizations ever since. Locally, Mr. Hileman served on the De Soto Teachers Association negotiations team for more than six years and still provides advice to members. He also teaches a graduate level teacher recertification course at Mid America Nazarene University, conducts instructional technology workshops for colleagues, serves on many school district committees, and is active in the local PTO.

Mr. Hileman obtained both a Bachelor and Master of Science in Education from the University of Kansas School of Education.

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