Keishia Thorpe, a Howard University graduate and current Prince George’s County teacher, won the Global Teacher Prize on Wednesday. She is only the second American to win the biggest teaching award in the world.
Thorpe teaches 12th grade English at the International High School at Langley Park, where most of her students come from immigrant and refugee families. Thorpe said she wants to put the $1 million prize money toward her existing projects to “help disadvantaged students attend college without debt and to provide other services for immigrant children and families,” according to The Washington Post.
The Global Teacher Prize drew more than 8,000 nominations from 121 countries around the world. It has sometimes been described as the “Nobel Prize for educators.”
“This is to encourage every little Black boy and girl that looks like me, and every child in the world that feels marginalized and has a story like mine, and felt they never mattered,” Thorpe said during the ceremony.
