HFM
BOCES adult educator honored by NYACCE
Lynn Trudeau receives the Roberta King Outstanding
Teacher Award
 When
the New York Association for Continuing and Community Education
selected HFM BOCES adult educator Lynn Trudeau to receive its
Roberta King Outstanding Teacher Award, they were recognizing a
multi-faceted professional drawn to teaching by her desire to
help develop “whole” people.
Lynn is a licensed master social worker and adult educator
working in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility. She
became involved in adult education through her counseling,
engaged by the inmates who had positive personal goals and
wanted to build skills that would benefit them when released
from jail.
“If you connect with a student's desire for wholeness,” Lynn
said, “he will work with you to find the way.”
Lynn created several unique learning opportunities for
incarcerated students, combining academic and personal growth to
help them succeed after they complete their sentence.
According to Lynn, educators should remember that in this
outcome-based climate, the positive affects of adult education
often cannot be measured in a standardized test. She recognizes
that “most students in a jail classroom have had very little
success in traditional school.” Her programs have helped
incarcerated students make the connection between academic
learning and the influence those skills have on personal
development.
Her classes that help in the transition to independent life
include Human Errors in Thinking, Three Steps to Personal
Wealth, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and Living in
Relationships. She provides employment readiness training,
including keyboarding, Microsoft Office, and graphic arts skills
using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
Lynn was one of eight teachers from around New York State
honored by NYACCE at their annual conference in Albany on May
3-5. She was nominated for the award by HFM BOCES Adult Literacy
Coordinator Laurie Barkstedt, who said Lynn is strongly
committed to collaborating with her co-workers and school
administrators to strengthen and improve continuing education
and professional development.
Lynn’s community activities echo her educational perspective.
She has served as co-chair of the Fulton-Montgomery AIDS Task
Force, as a former Parenting Educator for Healthlink, a
counselor for Episcopal Counseling Services, and a member of the
Board of the Mental Health Association for Fulton & Montgomery
Counties. She has contributed to her professional community
through service as a former board member and committee chair for
the NY Association of Incarcerated Education Programs, We Learn,
and as a presenter for the NYS Transitional Educator’s
Association and NYACCE.
NYACCE is a statewide organization that offers services to adult
learners such as literacy lessons, GED preparations and
corrections education. Their Outstanding Teacher award was named
in honor of Roberta King, a 72-year-old teacher who was killed
while teaching English as a Second Language at the American
Civic Association in Binghamton in April. |
