Eastern Connecticut State University alumna Jessica Chapman ’11, a history and social studies teacher at Norwich Free Academy (NFA), was recently surprised with one of the nation’s top educational awards. Chapman was named one of 45 recipients of this year’s Milken Educator Award (MEA) at a schoolwide assembly on Nov. 12. The award comes with a $25,000 cash prize.

NFA administrators and the Milken Family Foundation conspired to arrange the surprise assembly for Chapman. “I've made sure to thank those people individually because I know it took a lot of effort on their part,” said Chapman.

Since receiving the award, Chapman has committed herself to “being 10% bolder,” the slogan of the MEA. “I now have a network of human beings who are incredible educators who have my back and are looking to make positive change,” she said. “That’s what I would say is my new philosophy.”

Chapman will apply this approach to “advocacy efforts and pushing for systemic change through education,” she said. “The majority of my advocacy is rooted in the equitable teaching and learning of multilingual learners,” she said.

Chapman draws inspiration from the students she works with — among the student body at NFA, more than 30 primary languages are spoken at home, and 9 percent of students were born outside the United States, according to Chapman’s profile on the MEA website.

“They are just figuring out how to take steps not only in social English, but academic English as well,” said Chapman. She focuses her advocacy in “making sure laws are complied with and programs are excelling for multilingual learners, so they have equitable access” to a quality education.

“That’s why I love this place; this is the real world,” said Chapman.

Chapman’s real-world experience as an educator extends far beyond Connecticut — she once taught for a year in El Salvador, the smallest country in Central America. “I want to be able to advocate for my students with campus safety,” she said. “I want to be able to talk to their parents.”

She saw an opportunity to learn these skills in the program that brought her to El Salvador. “I obviously can't learn 30 languages,” she said, “but I can learn the predominant language, and on this campus, that is Spanish. … I ended up working at the most prestigious school in El Salvador with some incredibly influential families and young people.”

While in El Salvador, Chapman realized that the collectivist culture of the students there could inform the way she taught at NFA. “Kids working together in my classroom, kids pulling each other up and supporting each other, that's not a bad thing,” she reflected.

Adding to her eclectic educational background, Chapman attended Eastern — a university with a respected education/teacher-preparation program — but did not get a degree in education. “I changed my major to history and social science because, quite honestly, I was confused as to what I wanted to do,” she said. “I appreciated Eastern’s willingness to change my major.”

As a teacher, she takes a page from the book of several history professors at Eastern. “I enjoyed learning history,” she said. “I hope that’s what my students feel with me — I work at an incredible place where the teachers bring history alive, and that’s what I felt at Eastern.”