In her 30th year as a teacher, Lynn Langille has been nationally recognized with an award for Excellence in Teaching.
Langille has dedicated her career to working with children in school from kindergarden to Grade 12 with varying degrees of vision. One of three teachers in the Central Okanagan school district she helps students in Kelowna, Osoyoos, and Oliver.
“It’s a huge passion for me, the field is so varied, there are always new challenges and things to learn,” Langille said.
Thirteen years ago Langille founded the Children’s Low Vision Project where she, along with a team of doctors and educators travel around B.C. six times a year, providing low vision assessment and give free optical aids to school aged children.
The joint project with the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the Ministry of Education provides the students with magnifiers, monoculars, binoculars and recommends different technology that will help students be successful at school, such as laptops, iPads and iPhones.
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“We want to not only improve life at school but also life outside of school, things like being able to go to a restaurant with their parents and reading the menu themselves with their portable magnifier is pretty powerful,” Langille said.
Langille credits her success to the constant support she felt from School District 23 and the support from her director Dr. Peter Molloy. Mentioning him in her acceptance speech at the 2018 Canadian Vision Teacher’s Conference.
“I said he gave me the wings to fly because he allowed me to set the stage for the Children’s Low Vision Project,” Langille said. “I never expected this to happen in my career, let alone to be recognized on a national level.”
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