West Hartford Educator Wins Teacher of the Year Award

Jennifer Hunt, a teacher at Sedgwick Middle School in West Hartford has received the Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year Award, given by National History Day.

"What’s especially important to me is that I was recommended by my students and their parents, and they wrote on my behalf letters which were very humbling and they said why they thought I was a good teacher," Hunt said.

D. Claude Morest also received this year’s award. Morest is a teacher at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering in Stamford.

The award is given to teachers who show exceptional creativity, commitment and inspiration in supporting student interest in history, and each winner is awarded $500, according to Stamford Plus. They are also eligible for the national award, which will announce winners June 19 during the National History Day Awards Ceremony.

"History really gives students a sense of reality, in a way, by looking at something that happened in the past and seeing how it relates to the present and the future," Hunt said.

"I’m really proud of all my students and it keeps me intellectually stimulated as a teacher. Every year is new. Every year someone is choosing something, and I learn so much. That’s the biggest thing I like about it," she said.