Brian Devore (A.B.Ed. ’89), who teaches and coaches at Mountain View Elementary School in Marietta, Ga., has been named the Southern District Elementary School Physical Education Teacher of the Year by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.
Devore will represent the 13-state Southern District, which includes states from Virginia to Texas, when he vies with five other district winners for the National Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year honor at the AAHPERD annual conference in April.
Devore received his bachelor’s degree in health and physical education from UNC’s School of Education. He has taught at Mountain View Elementary School for five years.
In October, Devore was named Georgia’s 2013 Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year, an award given by the Georgia chapter of AAHPERD. Additionally, Devore was also the recipient of the 2013 Georgia AHPERD Honor Award for outstanding contributions to the organization, which he has served as president.
“My success as a PE teacher is directly related to the success of my students,” Devore said. “I focus on creating innovative learning experiences that students of all skill levels can build upon.”
With the help of the latest video and smart phone apps, he uses technology to help capture a young student’s attention.
“I use some of my older students to do staged videos and take photos of skills done both correctly and incorrectly. The younger ones then analyze this using their critical thinking skills.”
He has also found that journaling is an effective strategy to help students track their own progress towards achieving their fitness goals and monitoring their strengths and weaknesses. In addition to physical education class, he makes it a point to encourage physical activity throughout the day. Devore established a Let’s Move! Walking Week, giving students the opportunity to walk or jog on the school track before school begins.
He also provides fellow classroom teachers with ideas for movement breaks for students and started a “3 O’clock” Club for his colleagues to be physically active together after school.
Every year Devore co-coordinates Jump Rope For Heart events in February during American Heart Month and school wide physical activities in May during National Physical Education and Sport Week. His commitment to his profession and his students has resulted in Mountain View Elementary receiving the Georgia Governor’s Gold Medal School Designation through the Georgia SHAPE Program for the last two years.
Said fellow teacher Stacey A.O. Duffy: “One could easily walk into the gymnasium and hear Brian encourage each of his students by name to push him or herself to be physically fit. Brian exudes a passion for teaching kids to be healthy that is unprecedented.”