University High teacher honored with Presidential Award

As a young boy in small-town Indiana, Michael Conklin drew a picture of his kindergarten classroom. On it, he scrawled in his neatest handwriting: “I want to be a teacher. He helps people learn.”

Now 42, Conklin is living his childhood dream – and being recognized at the national level. The math teacher from Spokane Valley’s University High School recently won the 2015 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

The $10,000 award is granted by the National Science Foundation and comes with a certificate signed by President Barack Obama. Conklin is one of 108 teachers – two each from the 50 states and four other U.S. jurisdictions – who have been invited to retrieve their awards at an upcoming ceremony in Washington, D.C.

“I’ve always been excited by the idea of learning,” said Conklin, who’s taught all levels of math in his 10 years at U-Hi. He applied for the award in May 2013, with a personal essay and a video that shows him teaching pre-calculus. He said the most noteworthy moment in the video shows him pausing to help a student who didn’t understand instructions.

“I think that’s something that I do really well, is make connections with students,” Conklin said, noting that some continue to visit him long after they’ve passed his class.

Conklin said he focuses on teaching students how they use math in their everyday lives, even if they’re not pursuing math or engineering degrees.

“I find places where hard topics are used,” he said. “Even if there’s not calculations involved, there’s mathematical thinking involved … cropping a picture in photography, figuring out which cellphone plan to buy.”

Conklin also has taught drawing classes and served as a yearbook adviser. And he has a unique way of rewarding students who show initiative and turn in their homework on time.

“When I played football, we used to get helmet stickers for doing something good,” he said. “So I started giving out calculator stickers.”

As fall approaches, Conklin looks forward to his 20th year as a teacher. Before coming to U-Hi, he spent nine years making stops at the University of Maryland, where he got his master’s degree, and Brixner Junior High School in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He got his bachelor’s degree from the University of Idaho.

He now lives in Rockford with his wife, Tanya, who works in the Central Valley School District’s main office, and his daughter, Emerson, a second-grader at Freeman Elementary School. He said he doesn’t plan to stop teaching anytime soon.

“I definitely want to keep doing it while I have the excitement for it, which I’d say is pretty high,” he said.

He said the award belongs not only to him, but also his colleagues in U-Hi’s math department.

“I hear about guys getting Heisman trophies, and they say it’s a ‘team award,’ and I think that’s kind of hokey,” he said. “Now that I’ve had that opportunity, I realize that’s a true statement.”

The last teacher from the Spokane area to win a Presidential Award was Linda Carney, a math teacher at Shadle Park High School, in 2007. Separately, she has been named Educational Service District 101’s 2015 Teacher of the Year.