[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!
Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.
In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.
I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.
Dr. Ferial Pearson earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Arts Literature Teaching from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2001 and subsequently taught English and Reading at Omaha South High School for ten years. She earned her Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a Graduate Certificate in Urban Instruction from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2009. She worked at the Avenue Scholars Foundation at Ralston High School for two years and then began her current position as an Instructor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in the College of Education. She has earned three national and several local awards for her work in education and social justice, most recently, in 2016, she was the recipient the Kennedy Center’s Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher award. She is the founder of the Secret Kindness Agents Project, which is the subject of a published book, her doctoral dissertation, and her TEDx Talk. The project is in over 400 K-16 schools across the United States and in Canada and has been highlighted by Hallmark, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, and SPLC’S Teaching Tolerance Magazine. In 2017, Ferial earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
