Swift Moore Teaching Award
Graduating senior Daniel Carrizales credits Allyson Eaton with successfully getting him to read a book—multiple classic books, in fact. “If you knew the 16-year-old version of Daniel Carrizales,” he wrote in his letter nominating Eaton for a Swift Moore Award, “you would immediately understand how big a deal this was.” Having grown up in a Spanish-speaking family, he finally confronted his “fear of the written word” in Eaton’s AP English classroom at R.L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth, Texas. Because Latino students constituted 60 percent of the student body, Carrizales wrote, Eaton not only was familiar with their learning needs, but knew how to instill confidence in them as well. Carrizales observed that Eaton never underestimated her students, nor did she stereotype them as “too challenged by adversity and therefore unable to perform at a certain level.” Through her dedication, genuineness and even bluntness during her lessons, Eaton conveyed that she believed in her students’ ability to solve any problems they faced—a discreet but powerful message they received and, over time, came to believe as well. Carrizales praised his teacher’s “undying and selfless support,” without which, he believes, he would not be stepping up today as the first in his family to earn a college degree.