Skip to content

Port Alberni educator receives Prime Minister Award

Carrie Nahorney of Mini Miracles Preschool was recognized for her innovative practice
web1_170518-AVN-CarrieNahorney_1
Carrie Nahorney stands with her Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Early Childhood Education. ELENA RARDON PHOTO

An early childhood educator from Port Alberni has been recognized for her innovative education practices in the community.

Carrie Nahorney, of Mini Miracles Preschool, was recognized with a Certificate of Achievement for Early Childhood Education at the Prime Minister’s Awards for Teaching Excellence earlier this month.

Since 2002, the Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Early Childhood Education have honoured more than 250 early childhood educators for their leadership and their commitment to building the foundation children need to make the best possible start in life.

“They put out a call, I was approached to be nominated,” said Nahorney. She then put together a large application, with letters of reference and certification.

She added that the initial nomination process was very much a roundtable discussion. “We decided what’s the harm in trying?” she said.

Educators are eligible for two awards: the Certificate of Excellence (a national-level award) and the Certificate of Achievement (a regional-level award). Recipients are chosen through a rigorous selection process, and each nomination package is reviewed by the program’s selection committee, which is made up of major education and early childhood education stakeholders from across the country.

“There are so many early childhood educators in B.C.,” said Nahorney. “It’s quite an honour to be acknowledged at that level for what we do.”

Nahorney said there were five early childhood educators in the province who received Certificates of Achievements, and 15 total across Canada.

“I’m so immersed in what I do,” she admitted. “I think every early childhood educator is amazing. To be singled out like this is kind of humbling and kind of awkward.”

Nahorney works at the Mini Miracles Preschool, where she runs what she calls a “process-based practice,” where children learn, then play.

“The things that we explore tend to be nature-based, changing with the seasons,” she said. Some of her teaching is conservation-based, and she gets the students outside to explore the environment.

She also selects a different “artist of the month” and works their art into the classroom. Last month she hung up Picasso’s “Blue Nude” and had students describe what they thought the subject was feeling.

“I like having the children interpret and discover on their own, instead of having me tell them,” said Nahorney. “We also do a ton of projects.

“Children are so capable,” she went on. “They are the drivers of their own education.”

One copy of her Prime Minister’s award is displayed at the school, while the other stays with Nahorney.

“I’m really lucky,” she said, of working at Mini Miracles. “They are so supportive of my whimsical ideas.”

For Nahorney, the award is more about bringing awareness to early childhood education, and bringing awareness to her community.

“Port Alberni is an amazing place,” she said. “This is a way of saying, look, something good’s happening in Port Alberni. It’s not just the lower mainland.”

elena.rardon@albernivalleynews.com



Elena Rardon

About the Author: Elena Rardon

I have worked with the Alberni Valley News since 2016.
Read more