Penn-Harris-Madison teacher of the year’s motto: Live 'awake and alive'

MISHAWAKA — Those who meet Penn High School teacher Danielle Black might be curious about a word tattooed on her wrist, which is from an Ethiopian language called Amharic.

When translated into English, it means “alive.”

For the Elkhart native, who was recently named teacher of the year for Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp., the word doesn’t just serve as a reminder of Ethiopia, where she helped launch a kindergarten school and adopted her daughter.

It’s a reminder of how Black wants to live.

“A theme of my life is living to the fullest — awake and alive — and doing nothing halfheartedly,” said the 41-year-old English teacher, who is the high school’s Early College Academy leader.

The academy, launched in 2014, gives students the chance to earn an associate’s degree from Ivy Tech Community College by taking dual-credit courses.

Black has taught the same group of academy students for four years, starting with them as freshmen. They’re now seniors and will graduate soon.

About 80 students will graduate with college credits, and roughly half of them earned associate’s degrees in general science.

For their part, students liken Black to a friend. They even sometimes jokingly call her “mom.” In other words, the “teacher of the year” is easy to get along with.

Senior Samantha Johnson has gotten to know Black well during the past four years.

“I’m an introvert, so it makes it easy to ask her questions,” Johnson said. “She’s a teacher, but she’s like a friend on the job for us.”

Black also knows how to make her students laugh. On Friday, for example, she showed some humor when she taught a lesson on William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”

“She’ll play out the characters and do this really outrageous voice,” Johnson said with a laugh. “Today, she was explaining Lady Macbeth and doing it in a teenage voice.”

On a recent field trip to Warren Dunes State Park in Sawyer, Mich., Black challenged senior Charles Lane in a race up a dune. Lane, who won the race, smiled when he talked about Black’s take-charge approach to teaching.

“Sometimes she’ll be planning lessons at 11 at night,” he said.

John Gensic, a science and biology teacher for the academy, said Black has a knack for motivating her students to achieve long-term goals.

“She keeps these kids on track to get as many college credits in high school as they can,” he said.

Black, an alumna of Elkhart Memorial High School who holds a bachelor’s degree from Taylor University, is now working toward a master’s in English from IUSB.

Before joining Penn five years ago, she taught for a year at Goshen High School. Prior to that, she spent several years focusing on her Goshen-based nonprofit called Awake & Alive, which she co-founded in 2011.

Awake & Alive’s mission is to provide an education for poor Ethiopian children. In 2012, the nonprofit partnered with an Ethiopian group to launch a kindergarten school called Bright Future Academy in the country’s capital. About $45,000 was raised locally to open the school, Black said, which now has about 100 students enrolled.

Black’s passion for Ethiopia has deep roots. Her husband, Karl, spent much of his youth in Africa because his parents were missionaries. The Blacks adopted their daughter, Selah, from Ethiopia when she was six months old; she is now 9.

Just as Black tracks students after they leave the school in Ethiopia, she’ll keep an eye on what her Penn seniors accomplish after graduation. On graduation day, her emotions will be on display.

“It’s pride mixed with fear,” she said. “There comes a point when they have to leave the nest, and this is that point.”