Excellence Awards -

NCTE High School Teachers of Excellence Award winner, 2007

Tim Gillespie, Lake Oswego High School English teacher, has been named one of 24 National Teachers of Excellence by the National Council of Teachers of English.  Based on documentation of excellent teaching of English at the high school level, the award recognizes and celebrates exceptional classroom teachers.

A graduate of Stanford University, Gillespie began his career in 1971 in Oakland.  He moved to Oregon in 1973 to teach English at Parkrose High School and to help establish an alternative program.  As language arts coordinator for Multnomah ESD in the 1980s, he also taught 5th grade and 8th grade language arts classes in Portland schools.  He served as President of the Oregon Council of Teachers of English from 1986 through 1990.

In 1994, Gillespie came to Lake Oswego High School, where his colleagues describe him as multi-talented, enthusiastic, creative, generous, and compassionate. Senior Rachel Milliron characterizes her experience: “Mr. Gillespie is a pretty cool guy. He has an uncanny ability to make even the most mundane topics engaging and discussable.  I love going to his class—we work hard, but we never feel stressed out.”

Although he technically retired two years ago, Gillespie, who holds an MAT from Lewis and Clark College and an MA in English from the University of New Hampshire, returned to LOHS to continue to teach two Senior Honors/AP Literature classes.  He is working on a book about teaching literary criticism in the high school English classroom to be published by Stenhouse in August 2008.  In his off hours he writes and plays harmonica in Big Blind, a blues band comprised of Lake Oswego School District educators.
Gillespie was recognized at the Secondary Luncheon at the NCTE convention in New York City in November.