Jessica Culver

Jessica Culver is currently in her 16^th year of teaching at Ozark High School in Ozark, Arkansas, and she is loving her job and her students. This year, she is teaching U.S. History since 1890 to 11^th graders as well as concurrent college credit world history to 11^th and 12^th graders.

Jessica’s undergraduate degree is in history and her two graduate degrees are in the fields of history and library media, all from Arkansas Tech University. She is a Donors Choose Teacher Ambassador, a National Master Educator with Take Charge Today, and a Bessie B. Moore award winner for excellence in economics education.

One of her proudest achievements came in the fall of 2016 when she and five students won a trip to Washington, DC, with Envision’s Chase the Race Inauguration Contest. Through this, students met General Colin Powell (Jessica is pictured to the general’s left) and also heard from notable figures including Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai, among others.

Jessica says her biggest challenge is teaching all of her curricula in one school year. One of the ways she overcomes this challenge is by engaging her students through a variety of media. “Depending on the day, you might find my history classroom using artwork, music, podcasts, artifacts, or listening to guest speakers.”

And her favorite unit to teach? “I absolutely love teaching about the suffrage movement. I use the teaching of the 19th Amendment to encourage students to become civically active and involved members of society who understand the fight of historical figures to provide us with the right to vote.”