The Gold Star Award for Outstanding Teaching is an impressive honor because, as the name implies, it awards outstanding teaching. It is even more of an honor, though, because it is the students who nominate the teachers to receive the award.
Thus, it is known to all that a recipient of a Gold Star Award is not only deemed an excellent teacher by colleagues and peers, but also by students.
The opinion of the students is truly the most important one, as they are the ones who experience the teaching. Given that students nominate teachers for a Gold Star Award, the magnitude of what it represents is well demonstrated.
It is with recognition for the importance of the Gold Star Award that we would like to congratulate this year’s recipient from Cedar Falls High School, English teacher Diane Flaherty.
In addition to her teaching activities, Flaherty is the faculty advisor for Senior Leadership. Although not all of us are affiliated with Senior Leadership, its reach extends to us all, and those involved can attest to the effort Flaherty puts into Senior Leadership projects such as the Student Food Drive, as well as the support that she provides. Her students may also attest to the similar effort she puts into her classes and the support she provides her students.
Receiving the Gold Star Award is not the only indicator that Flaherty is a meaningful person to her students. She was also chosen by Erica Scullin as a teacher that has had a great impact on her life as a part of the Iowa High School Sports Association.
It is evident that Flaherty is a teacher well deserving of this award. Although she is humble about her impact on her students and Senior Leadership members, as well as Cedar Falls High School as a whole, she obviously need not be. In this respect Flaherty’s students have chosen to honor her.
We, too, honor and congratulate Diane Flaherty for receiving the Gold Star Award. We believe that the Gold Star Award is important not only because it honors deserving teachers such as Flaherty, but also because it shows the significance of teachers and teaching in general.
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