Winners/USA Today Courageous Leader Award

The 2009-2010 USA Today Courageous Leader award was presented to Kara Clayton from Lee M. Thurston High School in Redford, Michigan. Kara is a Video Productions teacher and made Courageous Persuaders an integral part of her own curriculum. Kara has been described as not only an amazing teacher, but an inspiration to many, many students. It is clear to the students who nominated her, that she really cares about them and does everything in her power to make a difference in her student’s lives. Whether it be checking up on her students grades or something as simple as saying hi to students when she sees them in the hallway.

In the words of one of her students, “She has changed my life specifically in the time she has been teaching me by opening my eyes to the fact that a teacher isn't just around to give you projects and tell you when they are due. She has helped me to develop my skills as a leader. She speaks out strong and proud for her positions. In the time that I have known her, I have come to realize she not only fights for what she believes is right, she never gives up – and she doesn’t let her students give up either.” She is a true Courageous Leader.

“I encouraged my students to become involved with Courageous Persuaders this year because they have been quite successful at producing inspiring video messages and I wanted them to work hard at going outside of their comfort zone. This was one of the first times they were going to have an audience other than their peers or me analyze their video for its effectiveness. It was encouraging to watch them go through the process of pre-planning, video taping the PSA multiple times until they got it just right. They showed the video to a “focus group” at the middle school in our district and video taped one more time after receiving feed back. The extra effort paid off.

I am proud to be nominated as the USA Today 2010 Courageous Leader. I think that one of the reasons I could be labeled, “courageous” is because I live by one very specific educational philosophy which is to allow my students to experiment, to have success, and even to make mistakes with their videos knowing that one way or another they will learn from their errors—and hopefully not repeat those mistakes when they are working in their careers of choice. I am grateful to the parents and students who nominated me for this prestigious award."
- Kara Clayton

Did your teacher, friend or community leader make a major contribution to Courageous Persuaders?  Nominate them for the 2010-2011 Courageous Leader Award, and tell us how they did it.