Tennessee teacher nabs the ‘Oscar of Education’ award

MEMPHIS — At Dogwood Elementary, a sea of tiny students parted and turned around to look at their teacher, Alexis Guynes, who was sitting on a row of bleachers with tears welling up.

Jane Foley, the senior vice president of the Milken Family Foundation, had just announced Guynes as a 2022 recipient of the Milken Educator award, a prestigious honor in the field of teaching. Foley called the awards, “the Oscars of education.”

While Guynes processed her surprise — she thought she was attending a special ceremony honoring teachers, not her specifically — her fifth-grade students wiggled in excitement. Five students on the gymnasium floor, each holding a placard with a number on it, also wiggled.

Standing in a row, students held placards that spelled out, “$25,000,” the cash amount as part of the Milken award. Those students also wiggled.

Guynes, Foley later explained, was selected after the Milken Foundation examined a portfolio compiled by the state education department. The portfolio detailed the qualitative ways in which Guynes brings education to life for her students.

Among those ways includes reading a book a day to her class, at the beginning of the day. It’s a time, Guynes said, “for us to come together as a class, and check in.

Her immersive education style was detailed by the Milken Foundation: students don goggles and lab coats for Mad Scientist Day, a teaching section on Jackie Robinson ended with uniformed students taking the field at the school for a baseball game, and March Madness transforms into literary March Madness with a reading tournament where students’ vote on their picks for the best book.