Recipient: Wayne Hall

School: Jacob Hespeler Secondary School

Number of Years Teaching: 29

Grade: all high school grades

Subject: Resource Education for the Special Education population

Inspiration for being teacher of excellence:

Wayne Hall obviously is passionate about teaching as he could be enjoying the life of retirement.  Instead he is committed to his students who want to learn and do well but just don’t know how to.  As a teacher he sees the importance of playing many different roles in his students’ lives, sometimes as a guide, sometimes as a mentor, sometimes as a coach, sometimes as a father figure; always as a friend and cheerleader.  Wayne makes sure that he always teaches the students not a subject.

Wayne’s brother and sister are both deaf and are his inspiration for serving the special needs population.  He watched as his siblings struggled their way to full and successful lives and desires to be one who is a helping hand for those who have learning needs.

Many students and colleagues took time to write letters of nomination for Wayne.  The letter from one of his former students caused the committee to pass around the box of Kleenex.

He wrote:

Mr. Hall was and still is an exceptional teacher who helped me, a young teen, see things that I thought I would never get the chance to.  He made you see the pros of achieving your best even when other individuals did not believe in you. He took the time when no one else would to make me see that working hard in school would some day pay off.  When it came to my senior year I told Mr. Hall that I thought I would like to go to university in the States.  I thought it would be a long shot.  Mr. Hall made all the calls and helped me get started studying for the ACT and SAT.  This was a turning point in my life but the hard part was yet to come with the studying.  Mr. Hall helped take mountains of material and break it down so that I would understand.  We did most of this studying after school hours.  I can still remember like yesterday the day when the exam came back.  I was in my English class when a teacher called me to the office.  When I got there Mr. Hall was there with a big smile on his face.  As he opened the envelope you could tell it was going to be a good day.  He then yelled out to everyone that I had passed and we all began to jump around.  He was more excited than anyone else. 

Mr. Hall sees what you don’t see or think is there.  He gives respect to earn respect.  He is a friend that we go to and depend on.