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Q: Nancie Atwell, a teacher from Southport, Maine, U.S., center, throws a kiss as she poses with former President of the United States Bill Clinton, left, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, prime minister of the U.A.E. and Ruler of Dubai, after she won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, March 15, 2015. Atwell has been teaching since 1973 and founded the Center for Teaching and Learning in Southport. (Photo: Kamran Jebreili, AP) 
  
 An American writing teacher whose private demonstration school in Maine has attracted thousands of teachers over the past 25 years has won a $1 million award dubbed "the Nobel Prize for Teaching." 
  
 Nancie Atwell, who began teaching in 1973, is the author of nine books on writing. She learned of her award Sunday at a ceremony held by the Varkey Foundation in Dubai. The foundation's mission is to improve the standards of education worldwide. 
  
 Its Global Teacher Prize carries with it a commitment to teach for at least five more years. 
  
 Atwell said she'll spend the $1 million on keeping the Edgecomb, Maine, school running. 
  
 "It's like a miracle," she said. "It'll mean life for my school for another decade." 
  
 Asked how she'll use the money, she said without hesitation: "I can buy two new furnaces — the boilers are shot — and books!" 
  
 She noted that the school is 25 years old, "and that's the life of a boiler. I've been patching them together with duct tape and chewing gum. We're going to have consistent heat next winter." 
  
 CLOSE Three U.S. teachers who were among the 10 finalists for the $1 million Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize. 
  
 Atwell, 63, also said she'd use the money for tuition assistance at the private school, which has served as a training ground for teachers from far beyond Maine. 
  
 "It guarantees the future for so many children," she said, "and it continues our impact as a school on other teachers and their children." 
  
 Education Secretary Arne Duncan tweeted congratulations. 
  
 Atwell was competing with a handful of teachers from around the world, including two other Americans: Naomi Volain, 56, a high school science teacher in Springfield, Mass., whose hands-on lessons in environmental science and outdoor education have won praise and awards; and Stephen Ritz, 52, an elementary school teacher in New York City's South Bronx, who has pioneered a low-cost, portable gardening and nutrition program. 
  
 One of the judges, Jordan Shapiro of Temple University, said Atwell's teaching "transcends buzzwords and trends, it is very thoughtfully grounded, prioritizing the work learners need to do in order to become autonomous critical thinkers. What's even more impressive is that she's created an institution and framework through which to share it with other teachers." 
  
 Atwell, who grew up in western New York and began her teaching career there, moved to Maine in 1975. In 1990, she founded the Center for Teaching and Learning, an independent demonstration school to experiment with teaching methods for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Her name has become synonymous with a technique for teaching language arts known as "writing workshop," an intensive method that focuses on stories and self-expression. 
  
 "I was an English major," she said. "I loved literature. I cherished great books, but my kids weren't reading enough. Not nearly enough." 
  
 She began gradually letting go of assigned texts and started building "an excellent classroom library" of books, fiction and non-fiction, that appealed to students even if they didn't appeal to adults. Her methods became popular just as schools in the U.S. were moving toward more standardized, test-driven methods of instruction — a trend she sees gaining steam in schools' haste to adopt standards called Common Core, new benchmarks in language arts and math. 
  
 "I worry that educational bureaucrats have a problem with pleasure," she said, "that if kids are enjoying what they're doing, it can't be rigorous or worthwhile." 
  
 Nancie Atwell, a teacher from Southport, Maine, U.S., left, is greeted by one of her competitors after she wins the $1 million Global Teacher Prize in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, March 15, 2015. (Photo: Kamran Jebreili, AP) 
  
 Reached in Dubai minutes after winning, Atwell said she was "in a daze. I'm really having almost an impossible time taking it in." 
  
 Her first reaction, she said, was to ask herself, "'Did he just say my name?' I wasn't sure what he said. It was almost an aural hallucination." 
  
 Atwell said the other finalists, including the international nominees, are all "fantastic teachers and people. All of them are people who work to engage kids, make school life enjoyable and ease the way and invite kids into the best possible version of reality. Obedience isn't the goal. Compliance isn't the goal with any of them. It's engagement. So it was powerful to be in their company this weekend." 
  
 She said the prize stands in contradiction to the more test- and skill-driven approach to education prevalent in many U.S. schools. She called herself "one of the old progressive teachers who's still believing in the power of children's voices and choices and teacher autonomy," adding, "I think the pendulum has to swing back. It can't swing any further to the right." 
  
 Nancie Atwell, a teacher from Southport, Maine, U.S., 1st left, and the rest of the competitors appear on the stage for the final announcement of the $1 million Global Teacher Prize in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, March 15, 2015. (Photo: Kamran Jebreili, AP) 
  
 In her acceptance speech, Atwell quoted the 20th-century English poet John Masefield, who wrote, "The days that make us happy make us wise." 
  
 "I think that's the kind of thread that's running through all of our teaching," Atwell said of the nominees. "When children are engaged, when learning is joyful, those are the lessons that stick. Those are the lessons that are worthwhile and meaningful and hang around." 
  
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1baFJBG ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Prize winner Nancie Atwell: "The goal is excellence always" 
  
 Nancie Atwell, an English teacher from Maine in the United States, has been named as the winner of a competition to find the world's best teacher, with a prize of $1m (£680,000). 
  
 But Ms Atwell has promised to donate the money from the Global Teacher Prize to the school that she founded. 
  
 There was one UK representative in the top 10, Richard Spencer, who teaches science in Middlesbrough. 
  
 The prize was created to raise the status of teaching. 
  
 The winner of the inaugural Global Teacher Prize, who received her award at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai on Sunday, was recognised for her work in teaching reading and writing. 
  
 On receiving the award, she said it was a "privilege" to work as a teacher and to help young people. 
  
 Giving away the prize money was "not being selfless, but being committed to public service", she said. 
  
 Former US president, Bill Clinton, told the audience that he could still remember almost all the names of his teachers and that the prize would help to remind the public of the importance of the profession. 
  
 It was "critically important" to "attract the best people into teaching" and to hold them in "high regard", said Mr Clinton. 
  
 We introduced the prize... to return teachers to their rightful position, belonging to one of the most respected professions in society Varkey Foundation 
  
 In 1990, Ms Atwell founded a school, the Center for Teaching and Learning in Edgecomb, Maine, where ideas for improving the teaching of reading and writing could be tested and shared. 
  
 This school, which will receive Ms Atwell's prize cash, has a library in every room and pupils read an average of 40 books a year. 
  
 She is also a prolific author, with nine books published about teaching, including In The Middle, which sold half a million copies. 
  
 The award has been created by the Varkey Foundation, the charitable arm of the GEMS education group, as a high-profile way of demonstrating the importance of teaching. 
  
 The attention-grabbing top prize is meant to show that teaching should be recognised as much as other high-paying careers, such as finance or sport. 
  
 Image copyright Other Image caption Nancie Atwell set up the school to help share ideas about teaching reading and writing 
  
 "We introduced the prize in order to return teachers to their rightful position, belonging to one of the most respected professions in society," said Sunny Varkey, founder of the Varkey Foundation. 
  
 The prize is "not only about money, it's also about unearthing thousands of stories of inspiration", he said. 
  
 Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's education director, said that the status of teachers was reflected in international test results, with a high value put on teaching in high-performing Asian countries. 
  
 "Where teachers feel that society values their job, outcomes can be a lot better," he said 
  
 Among those supporting the project have been Bill Gates, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai. 
  
 Inner-city farm 
  
 The winner was one of three US entries in the final top 10, which included Stephen Ritz, a teacher in the South Bronx in New York, who has developed a project growing food in the inner city, so that pupils can eat healthily as well as learning. 
  
 Ahead of the announcement of the winner, the US secretary for education, Arne Duncan, rang the US finalists to congratulate them. 
  
 Another finalist was Phalla Neang from Cambodia, who has been working with blind students in that country since the 1990s. She helped to develop a Braille version of the Khmer language and worked to prevent blind children from being treated as "outcasts" by the education system. 
  
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Richard Spencer displays some of his dance moves in the classroom 
  
 Richard Spencer, who teaches science at Middlesbrough College in the north east of England, was commended for his success in making science accessible, with an active style of teaching that includes using song and dance. 
  
 The international panel of judges included educators, entrepreneurs and leaders of education charities. 
  
 The 10 finalists were: 
  
 Nancie Atwell, US 
  
 Guy Etienne, Haiti 
  
 Jacqueline Jumbe-Kahura, Kenya 
  
 Neang Phalla, Cambodia 
  
 Stephen Ritz, US 
  
 Azizullah Royesh, Afghanistan 
  
 Kiran Bir Sethi, India 
  
 Madenjit Singh, Malaysia 
  
 Richard Spencer, UK 
  
 Naomi Volain, US |||||
A: 
A US teacher who prefers reading and self-expression to standardized testing has won a $1 million prize, and plans to donate the entire thing—to a school she founded in Maine 25 years ago, USA Today reports. Nancie Atwell, 63, heard the good news today at a ceremony in Dubai where the Varkey Foundation handed out the renowned Global Teaching Prize. "It's like a miracle," says Atwell. "It'll mean life for my school for another decade." Atwell says she plans to spend the money on replacing two furnaces ("the boilers are shot"), buying new books, and boosting tuition aid at the private demonstration school that gives training to teachers from far and wide. Called the Center for Teaching and Learning, the school trains teachers of kindergarten through eighth grade in a technique that centers on self-expression and stories. Over the years, Atwell says, she replaced standardized texts with fiction and non-fiction that students liked—at the same time America moved toward the standardized testing of Common Core. "I worry that educational bureaucrats have a problem with pleasure," she says, "that if kids are enjoying what they're doing, it can't be rigorous or worthwhile." The high-profile awards ceremony in Dubai (which attracted none other than Bill Clinton) is designed to highlight teaching the way that high-flying professionals in sports and finance receive recognition, the BBC reports.