COLLEGE PARK, Md. – National History Day® (NHD) announced the teachers honored as the 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year nominees.
Each NHD affiliate may nominate one middle school teacher and one high school teacher per year for this prestigious award, according to a news release from National History Day. In addition to celebrating outstanding history scholarship and innovative classroom instruction, the award comes with a $10,000 cash prize.
This year, NHD's Indiana affiliate nominated two teachers for the award. Dylan Ringler from Edgewood Middle School in Warsaw was nominated in the middle school (junior) division. In the high school (senior) division, Lynn Norris from Sullivan High School in Sullivan was selected to represent Indiana.
The 102 teachers selected as the 2024 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year nominees represent 50 of NHD’s 58 affiliates. NHD affiliates include all 50 states and the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, and international schools in Europe and Asia. Each nominee is a teacher who demonstrates a commitment to engaging students in historical learning through the innovative use of primary sources, implementation of active learning strategies to foster historical thinking skills, and participation in the National History Day Contest. All nominees receive $500.
“The Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year Award nominees always represent the best in history education,” said National History Day Executive Director Dr. Cathy Gorn. “As NHD celebrates our 50th anniversary year, I couldn’t be more proud of these teachers. Every day, they demonstrate their commitment to excellence in teaching, the rigorous study of history and primary sources, and the creativity and drive to engage students all across the country and world in National History Day.”
One national winner in the middle school (junior) division and one national winner in the high school (senior) division will be selected by a committee of experienced teachers and historians and announced on June 13 at the National History Day National Contest Awards Ceremony in College Park, Md. The awards ceremony will begin around 8 a.m. and will be livestreamed at nhd.org/awards-ceremony.
This program is sponsored by the late Patricia Behring, a philanthropist and champion for education.
NHD is a non-profit organization based in College Park that seeks to improve the teaching and learning of history. The National History Day Contest was established in 1974 and currently engages more than half a million students every year in conducting original research on historical topics of interest. Students present their research as a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance, or website. Projects compete first at the local and affiliate levels, where the top entries are invited to the National Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park. NHD is sponsored in part by the 400 Years of African American History Commission, The Better Angels Society, the Bezos Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Behring Global Educational Foundation, and the National Park Service. For more information, visit nhd.org.