Photo courtesy George Mayo
A Montgomery Blair High School teacher is one of three winners in a nationwide competition for C-SPAN’s 2018 Teacher Fellowship Program, the company announced.
George Mayo, who teaches film production, will spend four weeks in July with the education relations team in C-SPAN’s Washington headquarters to help create content for C-SPAN Classroom, an online teaching resource for educators.
“These kinds of events are really great because you get to meet other teachers and learn from what they’re doing, and also the people from C-SPAN,” said Mayo, who has taught at Blair for seven years.
Mayo and a team of students also participate in C-SPAN’s annual $150,000 documentary contest, he said.
“The last four or five years, they say I’m the winningest teacher—my students have won more prizes than anyone else in the country,” he said. “The kids have basically won about 10 percent of all prize money every year.”
He hopes to share some of the ideas and resources he uses with his students in these contests.
“We have some resources that I’ve developed with my team, with myself and my students that I’m looking forward to sharing with other teachers who are interested in participating in this documentary challenge,” Mayo said.
“I also hope to accomplish learning more about C-SPAN and what they have to offer teachers from the education side,” he continued. “I’m hoping to learn more about how I can navigate their site and use some of their resources with my students, and also bring back what I learn to my team.”
C-SPAN Classroom’s website “provides social studies teachers with access to thousands of free resources, including short current events videos, lesson plans and bell ringers, plus Constitution clips and ‘on this day in history’ events,” according to the company.
Mayo, who will receive a $7,000 stipend for the fellowship, also will participate in C-SPAN’s Summer Educators’ Conferences for middle and high school teachers (July 23-24 and July 26-27). During the conferences, the fellows will present how they use C-SPAN in their classrooms.