Little Brittany Jakubowski made it her business to ensure that among her friends, knowledge was not lacking.

“My mom says when I was younger, I used to pretend to teach the neighborhood kids,” says Jakubowski, 36. “We had this little shed, and I would make them sit through school, even though they didn't want to. I've always really liked the idea that a teacher has a lot of power and influence.”

Today, Jakubowski is among the most popular teachers at Catonsville Middle School—and one of the best in the state. Earlier this year, she was named Baltimore County’s Teacher of the Year. After the shock of hearing she had won wore off, Jakubowski was humbled by the honor.

“The things I do on a daily basis, I would do even if nobody was watching,” she says. “But it's nice to feel like that stuff is appreciated by other people who realize it does take a lot to go that extra mile.”

A Baltimore County native, Jakubowski was attracted to TU because of its stellar reputation for developing teachers. She thought she wanted to teach high school, but TU required her to intern at both a high school and a middle school.

I tell them that I will be firm because I'm always going to have high expectations of them; I will be fair, so I will always make sure that you get what you need.

Brittany Jakubowski

“I absolutely fell in love with middle schoolers,” she says. “There's something really interesting about the way that their brains work.”

Jakubowski returned to TU and earned her master’s in human resource development. 
Now a language arts teacher for sixth and eighth graders, she calls her teaching philosophy “the three F’s.”

“I tell them that I will be firm because I'm always going to have high expectations of them; I will be fair, so I will always make sure that you get what you need; and I try to be a little fun while I'm at it.”

It’s clearly working. Jakubowski’s students love her, precisely because she goes that extra mile. She’s approaching a 500-day streak on the app Duolingo, which she is using to learn Spanish.

“I had a student a couple of years ago who was new to our country,” she says. “I talked to him in Spanish once, and I said something really basic, like, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ To see his face light up because there was another person in the building who could speak to him, it inspired me to do that more often.”

So she does, every day in her classroom.