Mark Reid could win a million dollars for being an exceptional teacher.
This director of bands and choirs at Vancouver Technical secondary school is one of three finalists in Canada, 50 in the world, for the US$1 million
Varkey GEMS Foundation Global Teacher Prize.
“I was in the middle of a class when the email came in. I was sitting at the piano and it popped up and I saw the first sentence [that I was one of 50 finalists] and was shocked,” Reid said while en route from teaching at Van Tech to teaching at the Saint James Music Academy, the free after-school program in the Downtown Eastside that uses music to empower children.
C.J. Kumar, a music teacher at Queen Alexandra elementary and Reid’s student teacher in 2013, tweeted last summer that Reid would be a good candidate for the prize that celebrates innovative and caring teachers.
Reid saw Kumar’s tweet and thought nothing of it.
But when the Varkey Foundation tweeted its representatives had read about Reid and agreed, Reid applied.
He goes out of his way to further a student’s interest or meet their need. Reid focuses on “giving students an opportunity to show leadership any way that they want to,” and on shared responsibility and positive peer pressure.
“And knowing that there’re all kinds of awful things out there that kids could be doing, I remain pretty focused on celebrating the good stuff and giving them an opportunity to focus on the good stuff themselves,” he said.
Kumar can’t think of a better candidate for the prize.
“He teaches at an inner city high school. He has students coming from all socio-economic backgrounds and different ethnic backgrounds and he teaches a lot of students… and he’s got a great relationship with each one,” Kumar said. “He is able to inspire and educate them to be not only really good musicians, but also really good people, too. It’s in every lesson that he has.”
Prize recipients receive their $1 million award over 10 years. A winner isn’t required to spend the prize in a specific way but they tell the judges how they intend to spend it in their application.
Reid, president of the Canadian Music Educators’ Association, says he’d deposit half a million into an interest-generating account to fund community organizations or school programs that work to break down barriers to music education for youth. He’d also “do nice things” for his family to thank them for paying for and shuttling him to years of private piano and clarinet lessons.
The Global Teacher Award seeks to do for education what the Nobel Prize has done for science, literature and peace by highlighting the valuable contributions teachers make every day. The Varkey Foundation calls former U.S. president Bill Clinton its honorary chair and aims to improve the standards of education for underprivileged children.
The winner will be announced at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai on March 16. Reid says he’s been told he’ll learn whether he’ll be one of the top 10 finalists chosen to attend the forum in Dubai in February.
crossi@vancourier.com
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