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Local Teacher Honored As Vermont Physical Education Teacher Of The Year

photo by provided Ed and Sarah Cook share not only a passion for education but a career as well, as Physical Education Teachers at the same high school.

Tuesday November 8, 2016

By Cookie Steponaitis

Ed Cook was in the midst of his senior year at Milton High School when he knew he wanted to teach Physical Education and coach. “I had great coaches and PE teachers coming up through school and wanted to have that same kind of impact that my teachers had on me,” remarked Cook.  Cook has always been an athlete and loved how physical education encouraged people to take care of their bodies, participate as a team, how to win and lose and problem solve. And with those real-world skills in his sight, Cook attended UVM and graduated with a B.S. in Physical Education in 1995 and attained his certification in health. Cook joined the faculty at VUHS as a substitute in 1997, was hired full time in the fall of 1998 and is in his 20th year in the profession at VUHS.  “Being a teacher allows me to stay young,” shared Cook. “I learn something new from my students each day. The students at VUHS are exemplary. We have students that are hardworking, kind, involved in their community and are full time students. I think that the thing that I have learned the most is that it is important to make connections with as many students as possible. I make a point of forming relationships with students outside of class.”  While many Americans remember going to gym class, the role of Physical Education classes today is so much more than that. Cook and fellow PE teachers help students learn to live a healthy life grow emotionally and physically and extend those lessons learned in class on the fields and courts of sports teams and in their lives.
    Critical to the transformation in the ANWSU PE/Health curriculum was a grant written by Ed Cook and VUES PE teacher Robyn Newton. The pair was awarded the Carol M. White Physical Education Program grant of $1,000,000 to be used in the PE/Health curriculum in the elementary, middle and high schools. In addition to improving the teaching of the staff with professional development, PE came into the classrooms and the lives of ANWSU students. “For the first time ever each elementary school was able to have all the same equipment and to give each student the same opportunity,” shared Cook. “We were able to install an 18 hole gold disc course that the community is still using.”
    While Cook is honored for the award and looks forward to each day of his career the most important part of his years at VUHS was meeting his future wife Sara.  They have been partners in life and work for the past seventeen years. “I get to come to work every day and work alongside my best friend and to be inspired by a teacher that is committed to her students and the mother of our four beautiful children.”

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