PORT Macquarie High School teacher Janine Stewart recently received a prestigious teaching award in Melbourne.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Dr Stewart is a secondary mathematics teacher at St Columba Anglican School.
She was chosen as the inaugural CHOOSEMATHS National Teaching Award. She was up against 10 others from across Australia.
The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) and the BHP Billiton Foundation are empowering Australian students to pursue mathematics through the five-year national program.
This particular award is to recognise efforts of teachers engaging kids with maths, particularly girls.
“I’m very humbled by the award, and very happy. There are many fine educators out there so I am totally humbled to receive it,” she said.
The extremely intelligent mathematics whiz is in her fourth year teaching at St Columba Anglican School and her passion for the subject was evident.
“I like to instill absolute pure joy for patterns and relationships in the real world,” she said.
“Math is fun, absolutely. It is life. There’s absolutely nothing boring about it.
“If you come to any of the maths classrooms at St Columba you’ll see kids that are happy, engaged an enthusiastic about learning.
“The key is making it relevant, purposeful and meaningful for them.”
Dr Stewart undertook four year honours degree in mathematics at Wollongong University, and graduated with a first.
She also completed a master of science with a major in applied mathematics, has a doctorate in nonlinear fusion convection equations and to top it off, she has a masters in education.
Dr Stewart also spent almost 10 years in the United States, in New Jersey and New York. She was a maths consultant for middle schools and high schools mainly in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
“I caught the bug early on. The good thing about mathematics is that it is the one equaliser in the world,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter if you are affluent or not, male or female, anyone can do maths. Math doesn’t judge, it doesn’t discriminate. It’s a beautiful thing.”