To recognize teachers inspiring creativity during the “Back to School” season, the Santa Monica-based Goody Awards for social good recognized Santa Monica College Professor Daniel Cooper with a Teacher Goody Award on campus Wednesday during his Counseling 20 class.
SMC Sophmore Monique Kaminskaya nominated Cooper and presented this special award.
With a record 21.6 million college students returning to school this fall, the Goody Awards is taking the lead by recognizing outstanding teachers coast-to-coast with Teacher Goody Awards in September.
Goody Awards Founder Liz H Kelly shared, “We are fortunate to have four college interns, and have empowered them to select the trophy winners.”
Cooper is a Counseling Professor, who has rave reviews and 12 pages of comments on RateMyProfessors.com.
He received a 4.8 out of 5 for overall quality, and several comments sound like this one, “Best professor in the world. Take him!”
When Kaminskaya presented the award to Cooper, she told his new students he was a great teacher for her.
“He definitely changed my life in a lot of ways,” Kaminskaya said. “He taught us a lot of great things that you will use in your daily life, like time management. The way that Mr Cooper taught it to me, it stuck with me, and I am very grateful. He’s also very accepting and open-minded, and to me, he always reminded me of a skinnier version of Will Ferrell. He’s always there for everybody, that’s definitely something unique.”
After accepting the Teacher Goody Award, Cooper reflected in a short speech to his class.
“I love my job. I love my students. To me, I have the best job in the world. I get to hang out with college students all day,” Cooper said. “These are people trying to improve their lives, they’re here all day, and it’s an honor and a privilege to be here. What I try to do is make my class fun. I try to make it a class that you want to come too. I try to make it a class that you want to do your work. One of the things that I really try to do is motivate my students. I just really love doing this. I had several careers before I was in teaching, and this is my 8th year at SMC. I wake up in the morning, and always look forward to seeing my students and helping students out. As you know, I’m very open to you guys. If you have any problems, any issues, even if they’re not related to school, I’ll be happy to talk to you.”
Students were then presented with Goody Awards sunglasses, and asked to tweet one shout out to a favorite teacher, hero, team or anyone making a positive impact on the world.
Their goal is to encourage everyone to “Catch Someone Doing Good,” and especially teachers who give so much to their students.
Thanks to Staples, the Goody Awards will also be giving away a Kindle Fire this month.
Anyone can enter the sweepstakes that started Sept. 14 by going to the Facebook page http://facebook.com/goodyawards.
