Nominated by: Hayley Tilghman

I graduated high school almost eight years ago and to this day I still consider Kira Hoilman to be the most engaging, dedicated, and enthusiastic teacher I've ever had the pleasure of taking a class from. When I was in high school she was famous for her tough attitude and high expectations. She taught AP World Government and AP U.S. Government - two AP classes combined into one - and her goal was to make sure that every student got at least a 4 out of 5 on both exams at the end of the year. Our weekly homework, at minimum, was to read an article about the politics of a particular country and write an essay summarizing what it was about and how it fit into the context of that country's political system. This was on top of the longer essays she would occasionally assign, plus the infamous Notebook that she required all of her students to keep - a gigantic 5-subject spiral notebook that contained pages and pages of worksheets, diagrams, questions, and vocabulary terms that had to be turned in once per quarter to be graded on completion, neatness, and detail. During the parent-teacher meeting at the beginning of the school year, my mother compared her to an army drill sergeant; she's an intense person who speaks loudly and doesn't take bullshit from anyone. The difficulty of her class wasn't what made her stand out; there were other teachers who assigned projects that were just as hard, sometimes harder. The amazing thing was how she could persuade otherwise apathetic high school seniors to care about actually completing the assignments, and to complete them to the best of your ability. You didn't write a passable paper for Ms. Hoilman's class in order to scrape by with a B; you wrote a good paper because you knew she would be disappointed in you if you turned in anything less than your best effort. She would never accept a halfhearted excuse for why something wasn't done; she made you feel responsible for your own efforts and grades. She was always attuned to which students were working as hard as they could and which students were struggling; she used to peek into other teachers' classrooms to ask them something, spot a kid from her Government or Psychology class, and remind them to turn in an assignment or finished reading an article. She refused to simply "teach the test"; she would expand on the required material in a way that made the subject genuinely interesting and made it feel like something that applied to your daily life. She had us read current articles about the political events happening in Russia or China or Mexico and relate it to what we knew about their government history and structure. We would watch news reports about Crimea's annexation or discussions about the Iranian nuclear deal. We would have class discussions about political systems or hot-button issues and debate the merits of different opinions. She was passionate about voting and would always insist that it was the duty of any citizen of a first-world democracy to vote in an election. When a student's birthday came up, she would congratulate them on turning 18, and then offer to help them fill out the appropriate forms so that they could register to vote. She would always encourage respectful political discussions in class when the topic of current events came up. I can still point to her class as a key factor in sparking my (and both of my brothers') interest in current events and politics; she transformed the subject of government from just another list of test questions and vocabulary terms into something that I recognized as something that impacted my real life. It may not sound like much, but the most common refrain of high school students is "when am I going to use this?"; any teacher who can successfully answer that question gains a unique level of respect from their class. When my brother was signing up for senior year classes - usually picking easier subjects so he wouldn't have to worry about being distracted by homework while he was taking the SATs - I begged him to take AP U.S. and World Government with Kira Hoilman. When our youngest brother became a senior, we both convinced him to do the same. I believed - and still believe - that her class was more than just a credit to list on college applications. It was a profound experience that permanently changed my political and social perspective. It transformed me from an apathetic citizen to an engaged one; I became someone who actually watched presidential debates and read the newspaper. I started paying attention to CNN; later, I picked up subscriptions to the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. I had always believed that I didn't need to care about what was going on in the world; after taking her class, I became someone with a deep-rooted sense of civic duty and a responsibility to not only be aware of what was happening in the world, but to voice my opinion on it and seek to change it if necessary. If you speak to anyone at Potomac Falls who has taken one of her classes, they will sing similar praises, because she she has that rare ability to incentivize students who are otherwise only taking classes because they have to graduate. I wish I had a video of one of her lectures to submit with this essay, because anyone who attends one of her classes can see the kind of respect she gets from her students and how enthusiastic she is about what she does for a living. If you have the opportunity to call or talk to her in any way, I highly recommend it, because it will give you a glimpse into the kind of energy that she always seems to exhibit in everything she does.