The Examiner U-46 News Feed

Bartlett High teacher wins Edith Harrod Award

By Seth Hancock
  Bartlett High School teacher Anthony Zoubek was named this year’s Edith Harrod Award winner from the Illinois Communication and Theatre Association (ICTA).
  Zoubek, who is an English teacher, was recognized by the School District U-46 Board of Education at its Monday, Oct. 24 meeting.
  The Edith Harrod Award is described as the “highest lifetime achievement honor that an Illinois speech, debate, and theater educator can receive while still working in the field” by the ICTA, according to a U-46 press release.
  The award recognizes Zoubek for his work as a teacher, which he began in U-46 in 2006, and coaching of the Bartlett speech and drama team as well as his work with an ICTA advocacy committee that lobbied for a new state law that took effect at the start of this year.
  That new law adds debate and speech as electives that can be used for meeting graduation requirements as well as incentives for districts to offer those courses and related extracurricular activities. At the time that advocacy committee began work in its lobbying efforts about five years earlier, Zoubek was diagnosed with cancer.
  “There were physical ramifications of the illness, and they took a toll. But being entrenched in the legislative process helped me overcome the emotional ramifications,” Zoubek said for the U-46 press release.
  Zoubek added: “Today, I am cancer-free, but not entirely out of the woods. Teaching, coaching, and advocating for my discipline got me through one of the scariest episodes of my life. To be recognized for ‘a lifetime’ of achievement, emphasis on the word ‘life,’ by my colleagues, few of whom knew that I was sick, struck me in a way that was deeply personal. The law was a passion project that, from an emotional standpoint, helped me heal. To be recognized for that is profoundly cathartic.”