Following the philosophy that “students learn by doing,” an award-winning high school STEAM teacher in Brooklyn has gotten great results.

More than 30,000 lights, spelling out the word “HOPE,” shined a spotlight on the number of New York City lives lost to COVID-19 in an initiative of the Urban Assembly School of Emergency Management in Manhattan from March 12 to March 14.

The 2021 UFT Career and Technical Education Awards recognized educators who have shown great ingenuity and perseverance while facing the unprecedented challenges created by the pandemic.

Jonathan Hooper, an itinerant teacher of students with visual impairments in New York City and the Braille Institute Teacher of the Year for 2020, works one on one with students at all grade levels in all five boroughs. “With some accommodations, students with visual impairments can thrive,” he says.

More than 70 outstanding educators were honored at the UFT’s annual Career and Technical Education Awards ceremony on Feb. 7 at UFT headquarters in Manhattan.