Wallace named “Teacher of the Year”

Carrie Wallace has spent the majority of her life working with children. From teaching Sunday school as a teenager to now leading the classroom at Wrangell’s Head Start Center, Wallace, 67, has helped shaped the minds of her young students and encouraged them to grow, learn and explore.

Throughout her adult life, Wallace has led summer youth recreational programs, organized Girl Scout camps, and served as a substitute teacher for the school district before being hired as a classroom aide for special education.

And, for 26 years, Wallace has worked at the Head Start Center in Wrangell — the past ten of which she has spent as the lead teacher for the preschool.

Her years of dedication to the young children of this community helped Wallace win the “Teacher of the Year” award from the Alaska Head Start Association.

Head Start is a federally funded program throughout the country that aims to prepare three and four year olds for entering into the school system. Each year, Alaska Head Start Association gives out a number of awards to its teachers. The “Teacher of the Year” award is given to one teacher throughout the entire state of Alaska each year. On Feb. 8th, Wallace was presented with the “Teacher of Year” plaque at a banquet in Juneau.

Receiving the award was an honor, Wallace said.

“You’re very humbled when you receive something, because it’s a job you love to do, it’s a job you care about,” she said.

Wallace speaks of her work with passion, and a clear understanding of what she, as a teacher, needs to offer her students in the classroom. She wants her students to express their opinions, to know those opinions matter and know “there is no hold on what they want to become, what they can learn and do,” she said.

Wallace also wants her students to come to her classroom and discover new things, be inquisitive, ask questions.

“The old cliché of children should be seen and not heard, that’s way gone out the door, because children have a voice and they are to be respected…” she said. “They are our future here.”

There are roughly 20 students enrolled at the Wrangell Head Start this year. Wallace makes sure those students are excited to enter her classroom. She keeps the classroom active, lively and always makes sure there is something new for the students to discover, she said.

It seems her efforts are effective.

“They’re bouncing in the door in the morning,” Wallace said of her students. “They’re not saying, ‘Oh, I’ve got to go there again?’”

Wallace was nominated for the Teacher of the Year award by fellow Head Start colleagues last year.

Head Start Director Albert Rinehart, originally from Wrangell but now working in Juneau, said it was Wallace’s obvious dedication to her work that made her a good candidate for the award.

“It was really her commitment to the classroom, the families and the community, that we have recognized for quite some time,” he said.

Wallace has a Child Development Associate through the National Credentialing Program, as well as a separate associate’s degree in early childhood development. She is also currently working towards receiving her bachelor’s degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

While she may be 67 years old and closer to retirement age than most are when graduating from college, Wallace said it is important to her to gain her bachelor’s in childhood development.

“I’m a firm believer when you start something, you finish,” she said.

The kids obviously keep Wallace young, as at times, she can exhibit as much energy as her three- and four-year-old students. Some of those students Wallace is teaching are the children of her former Head Start students. Through the two-and-a-half decades spent at Head Start, Wallace said she is now teaching “the children of my children.”

Seeing those former students grow into now responsible, young adults is rewarding for Wallace, as is knowing those parents have pride in Head Start and want to bring their children back to her classroom.

“They understand what they got out of the program,” she said.