His Story
Michael Edward Terrell earned his Bachelor’s degree from Western Kentucky University in 1974 and his Master’s degree there in 1976, majoring in Elementary Education. His path toward the classroom began not in a college course but in the United States Armed Forces, where he became interested in a vacant volunteer position as a Water Safety Instructor, teaching and rehabilitating special education children through water therapy. He took the volunteer post, and the children who depended on him grew so attached that the military created a permanent position just to keep him on. That experience set the direction for the rest of his working life. After his honorable discharge, he enrolled at Western Kentucky to formally train as a teacher, and beginning in 1974 he spent the next twenty-one years teaching kindergarten through third grade at Cochran Elementary School in the Jefferson County Public School System in Louisville — a school where, at the time of his nomination, 97.5% of the 647 students qualified for free breakfast and lunch.
Over those two decades Terrell became deeply involved in implementing Kentucky’s sweeping education reform effort, the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA), working through workshops, seminars, and in-service training on the law’s six learning goals — communication and basic skills, core concepts, self-sufficiency, cooperating in groups, higher-order thinking, and integrating learning into real-life situations. He compiled math and writing portfolios, chaired his school’s Participating Management Committee through ten- and twelve-hour days, and served on the Site-Based Decision-Making steering committee guiding KERA’s rollout in his building. He also trained student teachers sent to him from several state universities, work that continued year after year because university programs kept asking for him by name.
His honors accumulated steadily: the Jefferson County Public Schools’ Exceptional Elementary Educator Award (1980-81) and Excellence in Elementary Education Award (1984-85); a feature as a Distinguished Educator on CBS’s “Sunday Morning” with Charles Kuralt (1987-88, later described as a full fifteen-minute segment aired in December 1989); recognition as a Featured Classroom Educator on Kentucky Educational Television and in Kentucky newspapers for his innovative teaching techniques (1989-90); the 1992-93 National Ashland Oil Achievement in Academics Award, presented by Kentucky Governor Brereton Jones; an educational commendation from President Bill Clinton; the Equal Opportunity Education Award from the Kentucky Department of Higher Education, the University of Louisville, and Indiana University; the Jefferson County Teachers Association’s Golden Apple Award; the Louisville Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year Award; the City of Louisville’s prestigious Bell Award for exemplary community service (1993-94); and the Jefferson County Board of Education’s Excellence in Educational Achievement Award.
Beyond the Classroom
Terrell’s best-known achievement outside his own classroom walls began with a single student. In 1983, one of his children was absent from school for two days; her mother explained that the girl had no clean, dry clothing to wear — one set was dirty, the other still wet, and the family had no dryer. It was snowy and 13 degrees outside. Terrell decided on the spot that he had to do something, and wrote to more than fifty companies asking for clothing donations for students in similar situations. More than thirty companies answered, providing over $7,000 worth of materials in that first year alone — with Terrell covering his own out-of-pocket costs for paper, envelopes, stamps, freight, and phone calls. What began as a one-time response became the annual Cochran Christmas Project, which he continued to run every year afterward. By the 1994-95 school year, the project had brought in over $1 million in donated clothes, coats, books, shoes, toys, candy, food baskets, and community goodwill, built on more than 500 working business-education partnerships, 95% of them with companies outside Kentucky. The project was profiled nationally on CBS’s “Sunday Morning” with Charles Kuralt in December 1989.
Terrell also extended that same generosity to organizations working with families in crisis and children with special needs, regularly helping the Wayside Christian Mission for the homeless, the Home of the Innocents for abandoned children, the Kentuckiana Children’s Foundation for children with disabilities, and the Jefferson County Court Advocacy Program for needy families. As a member of the Starwish Foundation, serving critically and terminally ill children, he worked closely with the foundation and the Kentucky Center for the Arts to secure tickets to cultural arts and orchestra events for those children, with his own students and their parents offering help and support wherever it was needed. His classroom also partnered each year with Operation Brightside on recycling paper and plastic and planting bulbs to beautify the school and neighborhood. He built a parent literacy program called “Parentshare,” anchored by a monthly newsletter and business-education partnerships with publishers and printing firms that supplied take-home materials, and stocked a literacy center in his room with 250 current magazines, periodicals, pop-up books, comic books, and puzzle books that families could check out and keep. For five years running, he also created and hosted a weekly “Pop-Up Book Time” segment on the school’s morning television news show — three-dimensional, movable-part books brought to life with puppets, special music, guest visitors, props, and giveaways, drawing other teachers and schools to ask how they could bring the program into their own buildings. He was an active member of the National Education Association, the Kentucky Education Association, and the Jefferson County Teachers Association.
Philosophy Into Action
Terrell’s philosophy of teaching centered on a belief that every student is capable of learning and succeeding, and that teachers bear a responsibility that goes well beyond academics — infusing not just basic skills but morals, values, cultural understanding, and safety, because, as he put it, society counts on the classroom to do work no one else will take on. He believed the classroom’s role had only grown heavier over time, and that a caring, literate, skilled citizenry was the only real safeguard against the pressures of a changing economy and a fraying social fabric. That conviction was inseparable, for him, from a plainly stated commitment to public education itself: it is the public schools, he wrote, that open their doors to every child regardless of income, nationality, background, or disability.
In practice, that philosophy showed up as a drive to keep updating his own curriculum and to keep building new partnerships between his classroom and the business community, paired with high, consistently held expectations for his students’ work. He described children as natural-born learners who explore the world in a spirit of play, wonder, and innocence, and saw a teacher’s job as protecting that spirit while gently guiding it — acknowledging each child’s existence and progress, and supporting rather than overriding their instinct to explore.
“Teaching is one of the most significant, everlasting things a person can do. I truly believe teachers must provide a solid foundation for real-life experiences. Every student is capable of learning and being successful… There are not shortcuts to success.”— from his essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
“I feel each of us must come to care about each other and everyone else’s children, because everyone is linked to the welfare of all other people’s children… We must care about all children.”— from his essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
In His Own Words
“It is more important to like what you are doing versus doing what you like.”— from his essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
“I believe little children are natural born learners. And they are. They learn by sampling life in bits and pieces… These explorations are like games — natural, uninhibited and spontaneous — and I want this preserved… As teachers, we just need to acknowledge the students’ existence and progress and support them.”— from his essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
“In 1983 one of my students was absent for two days because she did not have any clothing to wear… It was snowy and 13°. I knew right then I had to do something.”— from his essay, “Outside the Classroom,” on the origin of the Cochran Christmas Project
“As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Our children will carry on what you have started. They will assume control of your cities, states, and nations… The fate of humanity is in their hands.’ Let us hope we have educated them well.”— from his essay, “Philosophy of Teaching”
What Others Said
“He may not hold the position of Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, but has been honored by President Clinton for Educational Excellence. He may not be an honorable Governor or Senator, but has been honored by the City of Louisville’s most prestigious Bell Award… Just as the various sports categories have their heroes and Halls of Fame, Mr. Terrell has earned the respect and admiration of our entire faculty/staff, Jefferson County Board of Education and the Louisville community.”— Dorothy M. Bohannon, Nominator
“I have been in Mr. Terrell’s classroom on numerous occasions and have seen first hand his work with low socio-economic income area students… It is with this enthusiasm that I recommend him for the prestigious American Teacher Award presented by the National Teacher’s Hall of Fame. Mr. Terrell’s energies and dedication are an asset to the Jefferson County Public School System.”— Stephen W. Daeschner, Ph.D., Superintendent, Jefferson County Public Schools
“Mr. Terrell’s efforts and dedication are certainly deserving of the prestigious honor… It is refreshing to see the many new innovative projects and programs he has implemented, from the parent literacy program called ‘Parentshare’ with an accompanying monthly newsletter to the annual Cochran Christmas Project in which he has raised over $1 million in clothes, toys, books and food for his school and community since 1984.”— Thomas C. Boysen, Commissioner, Kentucky Department of Education
“Please be advised by this letter that my education staff and I strongly support your selection of Michael E. Terrell… He has exemplified a true dedication to the education and welfare of our children. We stand proud that he has been nominated for this national award.”— Brereton C. Jones, Governor of Kentucky
“It has been a pleasure to have worked with Michael over these past fifteen years here at Cochran… Michael’s classroom is a well organized, stimulative, age-appropriate, colorful and interactive primary classroom. He is a much needed male role model for the children at Cochran.”— Joanna Smith, Principal, Cochran Elementary School