EdCircuit Staff 
CANDICE NORWOOD
This weekend, Maine teacher Nancie Atwell was awarded the first Global Teacher Prize, a $1 million award intended to be the “Nobel Prize of teaching.”
Growing up, Atwell, 63, never expected to become a teacher, or even to go to college. But from the moment she began teaching in 1973, Atwell says she felt right at home.
“I am so inspired by all my students, but especially the seventh- and eighth-graders,” she says. “They are so uninhibited and if you ask them to do something they will just work their heads and hearts off.”
She founded the Center for Teaching & Learning as a demonstration school in 1990. The independent K-8 school based in Edgecomb, Maine, has gained recognition for its small class sizes, research-based curriculum and teacher training programs.
Read the rest of the story at NPREd
