BONNYVILLE – A new Bonnyville teacher is being recognized for going above and beyond to help students in math and science.
Chris Cartwright, Bonnyville Centralized High School (BCHS) science and math teacher, is Northern Lights Public Schools' (NLPS) nominee for the Alberta School Boards' Association 2020 Edwin Parr Award.
“It’s really exciting,” Cartwright told the Nouvelle in his classroom. “Especially being a first year teacher, it’s knowing that I must be doing something right; it’s reassuring.”
The Edwin Parr Award is presented annually to first year educators who have done exceptional work in their classroom and school. School boards across the province are allowed to nominate one teacher for the award, with six being given out overall.
When the board of trustees put the call out for recommendation, BCHS principal Corey Baker knew right away who to put forward. Suggesting Cartwright as the ideal candidate, Baker described him as “one of those very special teachers.”
“His skillset is far above what I would have expected for a brand new teacher,” he exclaimed. “It was a pleasant surprise and a welcome addition to our staff because he was well on his journey when he got here. He’s got a real skillset; he builds relationships with kids and you can’t even imagine how much the kids love going into his classroom.”
Cartwright wasn’t always headed to the front of the class to mould young minds. He graduated from the University of Alberta with a degree in astrophysics and decided that field wasn’t for him.
“Teaching is super dynamic and you’re not in an office job doing the same thing every day. That’s why I didn’t continue with astrophysics, because you do research that you’re sitting at your desk developing your proposal to request time on a telescope, then you collect your data, go back to your office, and analyze it. It’s just kind of a lot of sitting and monotony I found. Compared to education, where every day is something different,” he detailed.
After graduating with his education degree in the spring of 2019, Cartwright came across a job posting to cover a maternity leave at BCHS and thought it would be a great fit.
The Edmonton-native has been enjoying Bonnyville and believes it’s a great place to start his career.
“The class sizes are way smaller than in the cities. They’re all going to be 35 or more, so that made it way easier for me to get into it,” he exclaimed. “At this school, everybody is super helpful. They’ve shared resources, materials, and things like that with me.”
A focus for Cartwright in his classroom is making connections with students and ensuring everyone has fun.
“I find that once you develop that relationship with the kids, that learning comes naturally a lot easier than being super strict with them.”
He added, “With their age group, a lot of them are going through a lot of different things and a lot of changes in general so if I can be one amongst a few people in their life that they’re comfortable with then great.”
Baker noted that whatever the math and science teacher is doing, it’s working.
“It’s neat to see the smiles on kids' faces when they have the opportunity to be in Mr. Cartwright’s class, and the comments from the kids, ‘Mr. Baker, he makes it so easy and he’s always there to help us.’ That was also a sign for me that the kids have a pretty special person working with them.”
The award will be presented to the six winners at the ASBA fall general meeting, which is taking place from Nov. 15 to 17 in Edmonton.
