EDGECOMB, Maine — An enthusiastic crowd welcomed home Nancie Atwell this morning at the Center for Teaching and Learning here.
Last weekend, Atwell won the $1 million dollar Global Teacher Prize in Dubai. For Atwell, who was one of ten finalists, the days before and after the awards ceremony have been a whirlwind.
It all started with a 12-hour flight to the Middle East. After a brief rest at their hotel, Atwell and her daughter Anne made a quick trip to the beach, where the two waded in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. The next day Atwell wrote an acceptance speech she wasn't sure she'd even need.
News that she was indeed the winner of the Varkey Foundation's Global Teacher Prize was so top secret that the five people who did know had a code name for Atwell: Bob.
On Sunday, students and their parents and teachers watched the ceremony live from Dubai online. This morning, they finally got to celebrate with Nancie Atwell in person. Singing filled the auditorium at the Center for Teaching and Learning during a special edition of the school's daily morning meeting.
Atwell sat at the front of the hall on a rocking chair, CTL's 80 students on their customary pillows on the floor. Parents, grandparents and alumni filled rows of fold-out chairs.
"So, mom, one of the things you've given to all of us at CTL over the last 25 years is that you've helped students find their voices," Anne says.
Anne's 7th and 8th graders then used their voices to honor their teacher's mother with a poem.
Anne: "Our teacher, then and now. Then."
Student 1: "A foundation for future writers and readers is carved into the Edgecomb soil."
Student 2: "A clapboard house becomes a home for teachers and learners."
Anne: "Now."
Student 3: "Twenty-five years later, the teacher enters each room to a sea of smiles and flood of hugs."
Student 4: "The school fills with many books, old and new, fresh and loved."
Those who know Nancie Atwell say a creative, democratic approach to books and reading form the core of her teaching and learning.
"Certainly the premise of Nancy is that they can read whatever they want and write about whatever they want from the guidance of teachers and students," says Kate Dempsey, who lives in nearby Bath and has a child at CTL. "My 4th grader is a reading buddy of a kindergartener, so she gets to nurture a kindergartener with that same love of reading that she has."
CTL is also an innovative training ground for teachers. Since 1990, when the school opened, more than 700 have come from all over the country for a week at a time. Dempsey says her late brother considered Atwell's book, "In the Middle," an important part of his coursework at Columbia Teachers College in New York.
"The message of this award is that teaching is an important profession, an essential profession, and due a tremendous amount of respect, which in the West isn't the case right now," Atwell says.
A reporter asked Atwell about a rumor that she would use her $1 million prize to expand the school.
"We will only ever have about 80 students," she says. "I just paid off the last mortgage. You know, capital costs are the most extreme. We're not going to engage in more construction."
Atwell says the school will increase the amount of tuition assistance it offers so it can continue to enroll kids who couldn't otherwise afford to attend CTL. The school will also make some capital improvements. A new roof is needed, as are two new boilers. The school will not, however, be building the swimming pool that some students enthusiastically asked for before Atwell left for Dubai.