Creating a Better Future for Military Students

Teachers serve as an important catalyst for students. They see and interact with them on a daily basis and often are an important deciding factor in a student’s education. For military students, their teachers can serve as an important stabilizer in their day to day lives. While students cope with deployment of parents and often times adjusting to a new school environment, it is important for their teachers to be equipped with the best tools that can help provide military connected students a consistent education. NMSI strives to provide teachers with the opportunities to do just that.
 
Katherine Hergenrether
 
AP Teacher, Chemistry, Calculus AB, Eisenhower High School
 
“The most valuable aspect of the program for my students has been the materials that have been provided by NMSI.  The high level assessments and review materials have really helped the students adjust to the higher level reasoning that is required by the College Board, and that will further help them in college. My students move on to college very well prepared for the challenges there because they have already been living it in the AP program during their high school years. 
 
Many of the professional development trainings that teachers are required to go to throughout the year do not meet our individual specific needs and improve our effectiveness in the classroom. The NMSI trainings are definitely an exception to that. The training is directed at the teacher’s needs.  Specific concerns are addressed and solutions are presented.  In addition, the support available through the network of excellent teachers, the mentor program, and the incredible resources advance the abilities of many teachers.
 
I was given a method and additional structure that really helped to focus my class as I was working to develop it early in my career.  Without the guidance and material, it would have taken me much longer to get the class to the point I am at now which would have done a disservice to many students.  Often as AP teachers, we find ourselves on an island in our schools as the only teacher who has that specific course.  The NMSI program allows you as a teacher to “get off the island” and be part of a group of amazing people who are all working to improve the abilities and lives of our students.”
 
Shirl Williams
 
Teacher, Houston County High School
 
 “NMSI’s impact on our career choices cannot be understated - it’s the understandings of science, discovery of literary genius, and examinations of mathematics that develop tomorrow’s innovators.  In these classes – hidden behind piles of problems, and our own fair share of stress – we find our passions. NMSI helps do what every education system in the world strives for – creating a better future, and it does it in the most intuitive way: building it from the ground up with enterprising young students. With the help of our teachers, administration, families and friends we’ve done something to be proud of – but it’s the least of what each and every one of us can do in the long run.”
 
Throughout the month of April, NMSI will be honoring and recognizing the military children that we serve in acknowledgement of the Month of the Military Child. Read the rest of the blog series here.