Cindy Moss

Cindy Moss tells her students she doesn’t want to become refrigerator hum. You know, that annoying drone you eventually tune out.

There’s little worry of that.

The high school biology teacher has touched thousands oflives, inspiring at-risk students to shun their disadvantages and earntheir way into college. She’s proven to dubious colleagues at herCharlotte high school that it’s possible to excite teenagers aboutscience. And she's caught the attention of not only the state, but the nation with her success. She was tapped to help rewrite North Carolina’s biology curriculum, and appointed to the federal commission, "Commission on 21st Century Science, Technology, Energy and Math Education", which crafted the strategy for education in these disciplines and presented them to Congress and the President in 2007.

Along the way, Moss has collected a myriad of awards in her 25 years inthe classroom, including what some call the “Oscar of Teaching,” aMilken Award worth $25,000. Such honors, though, are just icing to Moss.

“So many people don’t know how to deal with teenagers, I feel like Ihave a lot of power to affect children’s lives,” Moss says. “Every dayis different with kids. You never know what’s going to happen.”

When Moss attended UNC as a Morehead, this small town girl thoughtshe’d like to be a doctor. But the scholarship’s summer internshipsopened her to new possibilities. Working with police in Tennessee, Mossspent time with down-and-out prisoners and learned that these menneeded hope — something she works hard to instill in her students today.

“Those summers were really my education,” Moss says.

Moss left a more lucrative career in sales to enter teaching. She usesunique strategies to get through to her kids — singing songs, actingout plays, drawing pictures. All the things we loved to do when we werelittle kids.

The curious technique has clearly worked. The evidence?

Since Moss started teaching in Charlotte ten years ago, three of her students have gone on to become Morehead-Cain Scholars.

And nobody thinks she’s refrigerator hum.