Leah Puhlick, one of this year’s recipients for the Yale Educator of the Year award, has been a teacher for 22 years, 19 of which have been at Langley High School. Photo by Reena Singh.
Katherine Tan may have graduated from Langley High School last year, but one teacher has made an impact on her to this day.
The Yale University freshman nominated her former Advance Placement [AP] chemistry teacher, Leah Puhlick, for this year’s Yale Educator of the Year award - and she was one of this year’s recipients.
“She loves chemistry and wants her students to enjoy it too, so in addition to explaining concepts in the clearest, most concise way, she creates scavenger hunts with chemical compounds or proposes interesting experiments like turning pennies into 'gold' to make chemistry more ‘real’ than just some lifeless equations on paper,” said Tan.
PUHLICK said she found out she won the award days before the school year began. According to Yale University’s website, 54 teachers and 30 counselors from all over the world were chosen out of the 306 nominations written.
“When I read more about the award, I found out that she had to write an application and they selected it out of so many others,” she said. “One thing like that makes such a difference. It’s knowing you touched a student’s life like that.”
Puhlick has been teaching for a total of 22 years, 19 of which have been at Langley High School. She said she found out how much she enjoyed teaching Chemistry while tutoring her classmates her freshman year at the University of Virginia.
“During my second semester that first year, I had other students who asked me for help in chemistry,” she said. “They told me I was really good at it and I should be a teacher. I’ve been doing that ever since.”
In the classroom, she likes to make learning chemistry a hands-on experience.
“I’m always looking for new ways to catch a student’s attention and make things more interesting,” she said.
She focuses on creating team activities so students can learn from one another in the rigorous, college level class.
“I think [my students] would describe my classes as interesting and hands on,” she said. “I hope they would feel it was a comfortable enough environment where they could ask questions.”
Those outside of the classroom take notice of Puhlick’s creativity in the classroom.
“Leah has always been one of the most dedicated and hard working teachers,” said Dranesville District School Board member Jane Strauss. “She does so much for students. Her passion for science makes all her students feel like genuine scientists who contribute to the knowledge of the world around them.”
Puhlick coached Tan for the Science Olympiad and Science Bowl. The AP chemistry teacher also dedicates time coaching the academic team, who she said won a state championship last year.
“When I first started taking AP Chemistry with her, she encouraged me to join the Science Olympiad Team, where students compete in events of various science and engineering fields,” said Tan. “She volunteers hours of her time after school to organizing the team or helping team members come up with ideas—mainly encouraging students to be creative and have fun. By competition day, her room resembles a science war zone with wood scraps or earth science textbooks strewn around the counters, and the faint smell of burnt nylon fibers in the air.”
Tan said that she is not the only student to appreciate Puhlick’s effort in the classroom and beyond.
“At a certain point in the year, many of us students had taken to calling her ‘mom’ because she put so much time and effort into helping us succeed.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION about this award, including other award winners, can be found at http://admissions.yale.edu/educator-award.