Co-workers select Miller as Discovery’s Teacher of the Year
Caroline Miller is Teacher of the Year at Discovery Middle School. (CONTRIBUTED)
MADISON – When the school year closes, Caroline Miller cherishes handwritten notes from students thanking her for being their teacher. Miller is Teacher of the Year at Discovery Middle School.
“There’s nothing more rewarding than knowing you have made a difference in a child’s life,” Miller said.
This past year, she taught broadcasting at Discovery and “Survey of World Languages” at Discovery and Liberty middle schools.
That survey was a new course that “briefly introduced students to the four languages offered at Bob Jones and James Clemens high schools: Spanish, French, German and Latin,” Miller said. Students learned basic vocabulary and cultural information and had guest speakers.
“Many students entered the course planning to study a certain language in high school but changed their minds after being exposed to the other languages,” she said.
Miller is proud of Discovery broadcasting team’s achievements during 2012-2013. “One of their biggest accomplishments was creating a live broadcast on Mediacast,” she said. Students developed the idea, organized all aspects of the ‘show’ and handled the actual broadcast. “It opened their eyes to what it would be like to have a career in broadcasting one day.”
Many students “have helped to make me the teacher that I am today. As I wrote in my teacher of the year application, I think about what kind of legacy that I’ll leave with my students and colleagues. I hope they’ll always remember me as someone who made a difference in the lives of others and as someone who truly cares about others,” she said.
Miller earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish education at the University of North Alabama, recently passed Praxis testing and is certified in middle school language arts.
She worked one year at Priceville High School and two years at Riverhill School, a private school in Florence. She has taught eight years for Madison City Schools.
Her husband Robert works at the wellness center at Intergraph Corporation. Their daughter Catherine will be three years old in November.
