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Mount Airy Teacher Receives National Recognition

Amanda Robertson Credit: Milken Family Foundation

A Mount Airy teacher is the recipient of a national award for bringing innovation into her classroom. The award includes a $25,000 prize.

Fourth-grade teacher Amanda Robertson is this year's North Carolina recipient of the Milken Educator Award, one of 35 teachers around the country recognized for excellence in education.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports Robertson is in her ninth year of teaching, and fourth year at Jones Intermediate School.

One of Robertson's innovations was moving her students away from traditional homework assignments, and instead sending them home with instructional videos that she produced. This allowed for more work getting done during classroom hours.

Robertson was surprised to learn of the award when a school assembly recognizing teacher accomplishments turned out to be a celebration honoring her.

Robertson is also in the running for the state's Teacher Of The Year award.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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