Belleville French teacher wins national award

October 18, 2018 at 8:13 am

Kurtis Hartnell, a French teacher at St. Michael Catholic School, has his students play games to help them learn French. Photo by Evan McClelland, QNet News

By Evan McClelland and Thomas Goyer

BELLEVILLE – A teacher at St. Michael Catholic School in Belleville has received an A+ grade.

Kurtis Hartnell was nominated as an A+ Teacher in the Post Foods Canada’s Search for Goodness Teachers Edition Contest 2018.

After a three-month voting period by communities throughout the country he was picked as one of the top 10 teachers. Post Foods then declared him the winner. Hartnell and St. Michael will receive $5,000 each.

“It’s hard to describe all the feelings,” Hartnell said. “it’s been amazing just to have won it and, you know, it’s awesome.”

He teaches Grade 3 French.

“My philosophy is taking the student’s interests to heart first and then, kind of, putting that at the forefront of the teaching. It’s making learning fun, because when it’s fun, it’s meaningful. And when it’s meaningful it stays with us,” Hartnell said.

Hartnell makes use of games in the class room. One of them is Minecraft where the students coordinated building a city in French. Board games are also used.

“I introduce a lot of games, and a lot of tech that the kids are interested in.” Hartnell said. “When you start with that point, you have them buy-in a lot easier, and then you can take what might have been traditionally a subject that you wouldn’t have been quite interested in and you can make it a lot of fun.”

They also do some computer coding in French.

“Nothing too crazy, but it’s, you know, to kind of incorporate that with the French is kind of neat to see.”

Hartnell said he was considering investing the money he has won, but it would go “mainly just to, you know, go and help with raising a family … I have a son, and I have another son on the way.”

Hartnell gave a huge thanks to the school’s library assistant, Kimber Pritty, who nominated him for the award.

“Kurtis is after my heart because he has a great love for learning and passing that learning and that love and that passion on to children,” Pritty said. So, I thought I’d like to nominate him.”

“I love Grade 3 simply because the students are more independent … but at the same time they really enjoy coming to school. They love being here, they love learning,” Hartnell said.

The principal of St. Michael, Michele McGrath, said while they did not vote in the school, they had a social media campaign to help get Hartnell the votes he needed.

“As a community we’re really excited and proud that one of our teachers was recognized in this way. Especially since it’s a national award,” McGrath said.

She said that the school’s share of the prize money would go towards their library upgrading its technology and making it more accessible to students.

“Our teacher was very innovative and that’s why he won, and as a school I think it’s really important to support that. We can do that making sure that you stand behind teachers that are thinking outside the box,” McGrath said.

You only need to ask some of his students to see another reason why he won.