Among the 112,000 teachers that have received the honor of National Board Certification are English teachers Jen Culbertson, Nicole Osborne, and Lauren Stewart.

The certification is not easily obtained. The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards requires applicants to have evidence of the standards and of what they do in their classrooms.

“It’s a great honor to be board certified,” said Culbertson. “It was a long arduous process.”

To meet those standards it requires passing four different components: content knowledge, differentiation in instruction, teaching practice and learning, and effective and reflective.

In the first component, content knowledge, they had to take a test that was both multiple choice of English content and teaching English practices.

“We also had three different free responses all that posed an English classroom scenario,” Culbertson said. “We had to write what we would do (in these) practices.”

The second component was differentiation in instruction. That required them to assemble student work to demonstrate how they work differently for each student and respond to their needs.

“We had to evaluate two student samples and provide feedback through a 10 to 12-page analytical paper,” Osborne said.

Teaching practice and learning was the third component.

“For this component, we had to film our classes two times,” Culbertson said.

Each time they filmed, the activities had to be different and showcase the classroom environment. Afterwards, they had to write a response explaining the films, analyze and reflect on the films.

The last component, effective and reflective, was the students’ assessment and measuring their progress based on data. They looked at each student’s growth and on how they would respond to what the student needed.

“We had to discuss our professional development,” Osborne said. “Professional development includes education we have pursued or trainings we done to further student learning.”

In Illinois, less than five percent earn the National Board Certified Certification.

“It was a pretty proud moment when I got the email,” Culbertson said.

During the three years preparing for certification, Culbertson had to show evidence of giving formative assessments, contact with parents and staying up-to-date with the best research.

Culbertson teaches freshmen and has been on the staff for 12 years.

Her love for working and challenging young people inspired her to become a teacher.

“It is my calling since third grade,” Culbertson said. “I wanted to be a teacher and I’m going to do everything in power to be the best teacher that I can be.”

Now that Culbertson is board certified, she plans on taking the new mentoring she is receiving from other board-certified teachers into her teachings.

“National Board Certification, I feel, comes with a duty or privilege to mentor new teachers,” Culbertson said.

Osborne teaches for both juniors and seniors and has been on staff for eight years.

Like Culbertson, Osborne had to show that she could pass all four components and show evidence of her teaching strategies

“I taught me a lot of what’s important to their (students) learning,” Osborne said. “I do think it made me a more reflective teacher.”

Her undergraduate degree from Eastern Illinois University in English and secondary education with a minor in Spanish.

Since she was in high school, Osborne loved English and her passion for writing began to grow into college. She had taken a few teaching classes and enjoyed the lectures.

“I started to realize that the love for literature had kind of started to translate into kind of a teaching kind of an idea,” Osborne said.

Like Culbertson, Osborne will take what she learned from the different components into her teachings for her students.

“There’s a better understanding of what students need in order to see growth in themselves,” Osborne said. “So I do think it helps you be again more reflective and more thoughtful.”

Stewart is currently on maternity leave.