Middle school language arts teacher David Jefferies was recently selected as a Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) Sarah D. Barder Fellow. Mr. Jefferies is one of ten fellows from California, Maryland, Nevada, and New Jersey selected for this year's cohort. Sixth grader Alex N. nominated Mr. Jefferies at the beginning of the school year. "Mr. Jefferies has encouraged me to be enthusiastic about writing and has taught me an enormous amount on how to become a better writer," Alex noted in his nomination essay, "He motivates his students to work harder and to exceed their limits." 

The Sarah D. Barder Fellowship Program honors a small number of excellent teachers—based on student nominations—who are inspiring and challenging students and helping to develop their academic success. As part of being a fellow, Mr. Jefferies attended the CTY Fellowship Program Conference two weeks ago. "I was proud to represent Brandeis at a gathering of such accomplished educators," says Mr. Jefferies." 

Congratulations to Mr. Jefferies on this well-deserved recognition. Read below for Alex's nomination essay about Mr. Jefferies...


I would like to nominate my sixth grade English teacher, David Jefferies, for the CTY's Sarah D. Barder Fellowship Program. Mr. Jefferies has encouraged me to be enthusiastic about writing and has taught me an enormous amount on how to become a better writer.

Before middle school, I had always liked math but did not like writing at all. I distinctly remember myself on many occasions saying, "Aww, dang it" when I saw that my class had writing next. This year I and a lot of my friends cheer when we see that writing is next. I credit this to Mr. Jefferies. He has shown me that writing can be fun, and at the same time he has taught me more than I probably would have learned from anyone else during the whole school year. One project that I enjoyed a lot was when we did our own epic poems, based on the Epic of Gilgamesh. This was fun, as it was unlike any project I had ever done before. It was not boring; rather, it was exhilarating to write. It was a delightful surprise to me, as I had never thought writing to be exhilarating at all. Even when we study “boring” subjects like vocabulary roots, he comes up with a way to make them interesting. Using the vocabulary roots, we competed in teams to see which team knew them the best. It was extremely interactive and everyone in class really liked it. This may seem like a game that second graders might do, but it actually requires a lot of knowledge of the root words to even participate.