“It was surreal”: Winner of $1M global teaching award returns home

CTV Montreal: World’s best teacher returns Maggie MacDonnell has returned from winning the Global Teacher Prize and talks about how she'll put the money to use in Salluit, QC.

The Quebec teacher who won a prestigious international award for teaching excellence is back in Canada.

Maggie MacDonnell received the Global Teacher Prize at a lavish ceremony in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, last week.

Chosen from more than 20,000 applicants from around the world, she was honoured for her work with Inuit youth in the remote Arctic village of Salluit, Quebec.

The prize was established three years ago to recognize one outstanding educator each year who employs innovative practices in the classroom and encourages others to become teachers.

MacDonnell says the entire experience was surreal.

“Just being a humble person from the backwoods of Nova Scotia, to have made it to the top ten was an enormous achievement in and of itself,” she said.

Now that she's back in Canada she plans to put her $1 million prize towards starting a non-profit organization with some of her current and former students. She wants their work to strategically address youth issues they're facing.

MacDonnell believes the process will be an important learning experience. She says it will provide an opportunity for these young people to gain communication and leadership skills.

“I know that my students undoubtedly, some of them are already at CEGEP, that they will be the future leaders of Nunavik,” she said. “Some of them already are taking on leadership positions. So I want to keep cultivating opportunities for them to enhance their skills.”

MacDonnell says there are two major areas where she’d like to focus her work: Salluit’s housing crisis and healing within the community.

She says the village is short at least 1,000 housing units.

“Some of my students that I brought to Dubai have grown up and spent their whole lives in a four bedroom house with at least 18-19 other people in it,” she explained. “I mean, what dignity is in that story? And to think that as Canadians this is how we’re treating our indigenous people?”

MacDonnell’s work has often centered on acts of kindness and suicide prevention training. The tiny community witnessed 6 suicides in 2015, all affecting young men between the ages of 18 and 25.

She says there’s collective trauma in communities like Salluit so healing needs to be prioritized.

“I was particularly inspired by a Mohawk professor that I had at McGill University who used to say that no one is healed until everyone is healed,” she said. “I really understood that when I went to a closed or isolated community like Salluit and you realize how important every single person is.”

On Tuesday she’ll make the journey back to Salluit and says she looks forward to meeting with her students and community.

While many people who accept teaching contracts in remote parts of Canada only stay for 1-2 years, MacDonnell has remained in Salluit for 6.

“When you see that level of commitment coming from young people themselves you want to match it,” she said. “That’s for sure one of the reasons why I love staying there.”