THS educator named Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year
TEXARKANA, Texas — Mark Ahrens, a computer science and robotics teacher at Texas High School, has been selected among thousands of eligible teachers as a 2021 Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year Award recipient.
Ahrens is one of 10 award recipients from across the U.S. to be recognized for this honor. The award comes with a prize package of $30,000, which includes $25,000 to expand computer science and/or robotics education at his school and a $5,000 teacher cash award.
The 10 teachers across the country who received the Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year Award were chosen based on a variety of criteria, including their commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion within computer science education, a recommendation from a school administrator and compelling, personal anecdotes about their school and students. Scholarship America reviewed applicants and selected the award recipients.
Ahrens, who applied for the award because of the program funding, said he originally had no idea there was a personal cash award. He was pleasantly surprised by his principal Carla Dupree with the news.
“I honestly wasn’t even sure if we fit all of the things they were looking for at first,” he said. “But I was looking through the criteria and requirements they had on (the application), and I was like, ‘I do all of this stuff.’ So, I filled out an application.
“Quite frankly, I forgot about it until they surprised me. It never even registered to me what was going on until I had won it. When I opened it up and started reading it, it took me a second and I was like, ‘oh wow, they actually chose me.’ And I went through several types of emotions at that moment. It’s crazy how it all worked out.”
Ahrens began his career in education seven years ago. He took over as the computer science teacher at Texas High School that started with only two sections. He worked to grow the program from these two introductory sections to a current curriculum of eight classes.
His goal is to help develop student skills and knowledge to support and expand the regional technology industry, using CTE-based activities, that companies are looking to employ.
“I’m just trying to target some students who aren’t on the four-year path and to get them more workforce ready out of high school,” Ahrens said. “That’s really where I wanted to go with that money.”
Ahrens said he’s already seen the effect his courses and preparation have had on students after graduating from Texas High.
“A lot of my students end up going to major universities, and one of the first-year courses that engineering students have to take is a programming course,” he said. “What they have to learn is something that I teach them in the very first semester of Computer Science 1. So, they’re already kind of ready for that aspect.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the market for computer science professionals will grow 11% between 2019 and 2029. And as of May 2020, the median annual wage for computer and information technology occupations was $91,250.
With quality opportunities seemingly sprouting up in this line of work, Ahrens said he just hopes students who are interested in computer technology have the resources to stick with it.
“Computer science and technology is nothing to be afraid of,” he said.”If I can learn it, trust me, anybody can learn it. There’s a lot of things that go into it, but there’s also a lot of things that can come out of it. And that’s really what I’m trying to tell my students. You don’t have to be Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg to do well in that field. An average person can go in there and make a very nice living doing just the average thing. It’s just a really, really neat field.”