The world's best teacher receives a $1 million reward.

Nancie Atwell, an English teacher from Maine, USA, is the winner of the competition to find the world's best teacher, receiving a prize of $1 million.

Ms. Atwell, 63, was honored for her innovative methods of helping students improve their reading and encouraging them to read up to 40 books a year. At the awards ceremony on March 15th in Dubai, Atwell said she felt honored to be named the world's best teacher. She shared that winning the Global Teacher Award was a farewell to a career she had dedicated her life to, but the real value she received came from the students' positive response.

Nancie Atwell, a teacher from Southport, Maine, USA, won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize in Dubai on March 15. Photo: AP.

"I only truly realize how useful I am each day when I'm standing on the podium," AP quoted Atwell as saying.

According to AP, Atwell was selected from 1,300 applicants from 127 countries. Experts, including teachers and school administrators, selected the 50 most promising candidates. A awards committee then further narrowed this list down to 10. Finally, a panel of over 60 people, including professors, executives, journalists, and public figures, evaluated each candidate to determine the world's best teacher.

This is the first year the Global Teacher Award, created by the Varkey Foundation, a charitable arm of the GEMS education group, is being awarded as a way to demonstrate the importance of teaching. The award shows that teaching should be recognized and respected as a well-paid profession. The Global Teacher Award is considered the most prestigious award in education and is equivalent to the Nobel Prize.

Atwell's students (center) read an average of 40 books per year, compared to the national average of about 10. Photo: NY Times.

Ms. Atwell plans to donate all of her prize money to the Teaching and Learning Center. She founded this school in Edgecomb, Maine, in 1990, where ideas for improving reading and writing are tested and shared. The school has libraries in all its classrooms.

Eighth-grade students at the school read an average of 40 books per year, while the national average is around 10. Ms. Atwell's students also write well, and many have gone on to become published authors. At school, students get to choose the topic for their essays and the books they read.

Hundreds of teachers have visited Ms. Atwell's center over the years to learn her methods for teaching reading and writing. Ms. Atwell is also a prolific author, with nine books on teaching that have been published and sold half a million copies.

According to VnExpress