Statewide honors for WSU graduate who loves teaching history
Bridget Federspiel loves teaching history, and a recent statewide award is the latest example in a series of events recognizing this fact.
Federspiel, who just received a Master of Arts degree in history from Wright State University, was named a 2005 Ohio Teacher of Merit in a statewide National History Day competition sponsored by the Ohio Historical Society.
Federspiel teaches at Stivers School for the Arts in Dayton and was nominated by her 10th grade students as an exceptional teacher. She teaches world history and American history and coordinated Dayton’s first history fair at Stivers in 2004. She also took several students to state competition and attended the National History Day Teacher Institute in Washington, D.C., last summer.
“History is important because it helps create responsible citizens,” Federspiel said. “Teachers have a responsibility to be committed to their discipline, stay current on new information, stay active in their professional organizations and never, never stop learning. We are role models for our students, so if we can’t show them our passion, our love of learning, who will?”
Federspiel has earned national board certification while in graduate school and received the 2002 James Madison Fellowship to study at Wright State. She was selected Dayton Teaching American History Fellow last year, which involved participating in a year-long seminar and attendance at the 2004 Organization of American Historians meeting in Boston.
“Bridget is very dedicated to her work and a tremendous credit to the teaching profession because of her enthusiasm and love of history,” said Marjorie McLellan, Ph.D., a WSU history professor who co-directs the Dayton and Miami Valley Teaching American History projects. She noted that even though it is the summer and Federspiel just graduated, she has enrolled in a teacher institute on the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.