Episode 59: Amanda Miliner, 2015 Georgia Teacher of the Year

Amanda is an elementary teacher in Houston County, Georgia who was recognized as the 2015 Georgia Teacher of the Year. In 2006 she was Miss Georgia and competed for the title of Miss America.

This last year she spent time in schools model teaching, presenting, co-teaching and talking with various organizations across the state. She also traveled to Washington, DC where she met the President, twice.

She sees herself as a self-made person. She knows how important education is. She likes to explain to kids that she came from a single parent home but that she has not let that interfere with her life journey. She is a first generation college graduate in her family and now she is working on her doctorate.  She emphasizes to kids that she wanted something better for herself.

Amanda has a no excuses mentality in the classroom. She expects the kids to work hard and not ask for handouts.

She comments that she didn’t start out wanting to be a teacher, but explains how the desire to teach rose to the top.

Listen closely as she talks about the teacher who hooked her into wanting to be a teacher because she had a classroom that was like an educational theme park!

We talk about what her ideal classroom would look like as well as what her favorite resources are.

She describes herself as being orange not blue and how that impacts her teaching and her interactions with the kids.

She will challenge you to think about how you see and work with the kids.

Catch up with Amanda on Twitter @gatoty2015

Amanda mentioned these resources:

Kidblog

iMovie

Length: 30:36