AP U.S. history teacher (APUSH) Faith Stackhouse Daly received the University of Chicago’s 2023 Outstanding Educator Award during a virtual event in late November.
The University of Chicago (UChicago) Outstanding Educator Award is an annual tradition where UChicago allows incoming freshmen the opportunity to nominate high school educators who made a difference in their education and brought positive influence into their lives.
“I was shocked when I got it,” Daly said. “When I got the email saying ‘you were selected’ I was like ‘what!’”
In addition to receiving a commemorative award, certificate and letter with details from students who nominated her, Daly also recalls receiving thank-you gifts from UChicago before she even received the award. She mentions the students who nominated her were both students she worked with for National History Day, a competition where students from grade 6-12 can submit history projects and compete at a county, state, and national level.
Daly earned her bachelor’s degree in history and political science and later received a master’s in international policy. Initially, Daly wanted to pursue a career in the political science field, but ultimately decided to go into education.
“One of the things about the policy world is that there’s lots of ups and downs,” Daly said. “When it’s up, it’s awesome and so much fun. But there’s also a lot of time sitting in your cubicle when you won’t have fun.”
Daly got her first taste of teaching in 2003 when she moved overseas to Morocco as a resident. There, she started teaching English to support staff at the state embassy, eventually leading her to teach English as a foreign language at Rabat American School. While working at the school, Daly realized that she enjoyed teaching, and was even offered to teach her own English literature class.
However, despite her job as an English teacher, Daly wished to teach a social studies class, bringing her back to the U.S., where she eventually started teaching history classes here in 2016.
“My favorite thing about teaching is helping students who have been struggling and that moment when they get it,” Daly said.
One of Daly’s primary goals in teaching APUSH is to provide students with the basic skills of the discipline, so that even if students don’t love the subject themselves, they’ll be able to gain a general appreciation for it.
“Most students will never major in history and that’s OK,” Daly said. “But it’s exciting when kids tell me ‘I’m STEM, but I decided to minor in one of the social sciences because of this,’ so that’s exciting.”
