Nahant woman, a Hub teacher, nominated for national award

NAHANT – The tradition that each Supreme Court Justice shake hands with each other whenever the group gathers is not a typical topic in math class.But it helped Carla McCormack’s students understand functions and graphs. It also helped McCormack receive a nomination for the Presidential Teaching Award.”Students go and shake each other’s hands and it turns into a graph, then it turns into a formula,” McCormack explain-ed. “It goes from very tactile, to a picture, to the abstract.”McCormack has commuted from Nahant to the Clarence Edwards Middle School in Charlestown for seven years.She teaches inclusion math – which integrates students with special needs into mainstream classes – and Algebra I to a student body where she said 98 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunch.She has seen the school rebound from near closure to become a magnet for Boston students and an international model of success.”We went from 230 students and it looked like we were going to become condos, to 530 students and we currently have a waiting list,” McCormack said proudly. “I did a math lesson for (U.S.) Sen. Ted Kennedy? The New York Times wrote about us and we seem to get a lot of visitors from Iceland.”And since the students were working so hard, McCormack said that she had to follow suit.”I figured that if my students had to push themselves with the plethora of issues they bring to school every day – I have students who live in shelters and routinely lack food – I could push myself living here in Nahant,”So she decided to apply for certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.McCormack described the process as essentially completing a five-part research project based on teaching methods and classroom accomplishments. It is also all voluntary.”You eat, sleep and breathe that project,” she said. “And nobody forces you to do it.”The board gives teachers a year to apply for certification, McCormack said. McCormack took three months to complete a 135-page report, a professionally edited video of classroom lessons and many more supporting documents. And everything had to be submitted according to “very particular” requirements, McCormack added.McCormack received the board certification in November.In June, she received a letter that she was one of three Massachusetts science and math teachers nominated for the Presidential Teaching Award.”I’m really proud,” said her husband, Paul McCormack. “She’s finally getting the accolades she deserves? every night she’s working till 10 o’clock.Carla McCormack said that the work is necessary. She said that the majority of students come from single-parent households or dual-income households.”For the majority of the students, there is no one to go home to and cement the learning,”she said.”For my kids, it’s essential that (math) is learned and that is explored in school.”