Faculty Member Receives Distinguished Teaching Achievement Award

Geography teacher Kevin Fox is a recipient of the 2019 Distinguished Teaching Award from the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE). The award recognizes excellence in geography teaching at the primary and secondary levels. Kevin is also the founding director of The Geographical Imaginations Expedition & Institute and host of the radio show, Geographical Imaginations: Radio Expeditions Into the Geographies of Everything and Nothing.

“Improving geo-literacy is the goal of my work with students,” said Kevin. “It is quite the honor to be recognized by the top geography education professional organization in the country. The work we are doing has been validated by a group of external reviewers and this motivates me to continue to develop deep learning outcomes for our globally-minded citizen-scholars as they learn to navigate the nuances of the 21st century.”

Kevin joined the George School community in 2018, the same year that Advanced Placement Human Geography became a requirement for all first-year George School students. “Geography is not just about countries and capitals,” said Kevin. “I think that surprises a lot of students. Human Geography is an introduction to thinking about the interconnectedness of regions and understanding the political, social, economic, and environmental processes that shape who we are and what we do.”

As a geographer, Kevin practices what he teaches. He has lived in Spain, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Canada, Ireland, Austria, and Tanzania. Kevin is fluent in English and Spanish, can carry a conversation in Guarani, and studied Irish Gaelic too. He spent two years in the Peace Corps where he helped diversify farming practices through beekeeping, herded sheep in Montana, taught Spanish in the United States and English in Bolivia, just to name a few of his professional experiences. “Those experiences allowed me to see the realities of what I had learned firsthand. That is some of the best learning one can have,” said Kevin.

Earlier this year, Kevin was named a 2019 National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow, allowing him to travel to the Arctic over the summer. He wrote about this experience in Asking the Artic—an October blog post on George School Voices.

“As a teacher and geographer, I can’t help but see the classroom as a space—one that is both dynamic and full of possibility,” Kevin said. “Teaching becomes more meaningful for me when students feel comfortable enough in the classroom space to formulate and ask questions and pursue their own lines of geographical inquiry.”

Kevin earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Connecticut, a Master of Arts in geography from Ohio University, and completed doctoral coursework in cultural geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to teaching, he is a dorm parent, world traveler, and devoted Huskies fan.

NCGE is a non-profit organization chartered to enhance the status and quality of geography teaching and learning.