Johnson goes “full on” and wins $2000 grant in creative teacher contest

Campion English teacher, Erin Johnson, was chosen as the winner of the Noosa Full On Grants Contest, receiving $2000 to use creatively in her classroom. She was selected amongst the top 10 nominees as showing the “best example of bold, generous, ‘full-on’ efforts that go above and beyond in teaching” and a creative use of the grant funds. 

Johnson was not aware of the contest until she was notified of her nomination. “I hadn’t even seen this competition before,” she commented.”My friend found this contest somewhere and filled out an entry for me. She texted me saying, ‘I’m nominating you for this award!’”

Later when asked how she felt about receiving the grant, she said, “It was the most exciting thing that’s happened to me. It made me feel more confident because teaching is a career where we don’t necessarily get a lot of praise. It felt nice to see how my work has paid off.”

Erin Johnson is a teacher who incorporates unique and creative ideas into her classroom everyday. “I really like literature to be as hands on as possible, so I try to take things out of the book and make it come alive. I want to make the curriculum applicable to the class, and I’m trying to find an awesome unit I can reuse every year, but it’s really just trying to see what works for the students. The world is always changing, so the classroom should always be changing too,” she elaborated. 

Johnson mentioned her own high school English teacher was a big inspiration for her teaching methods and how she still draws from some of his ideas. She plans to use the $2000 grant money for interactive projectors for each of the staff to use and for premium versions of online education tools. 

Sami Hodges, Campion News Team

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