Teaching prize to Lab Schools' Needlman

Gloria Needlman, a nursery school and kindergarten teacher at the Laboratory Schools, has received the Kohl/McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Award.

The prize, which was awarded for the first time this year, is the only one of its kind in the nation. Winners receive $5,000, one year of interactive programming by educational experts at the Kohl Children's Museum in Wilmette, Ill., and induction into the Kohl Academy of Outstanding Educators.

More than 2,000 primary-grade teachers were nominated for the award, which recognizes outstanding accomplishments of educators working with children 8 years of age or younger. Needlman was among five teachers to receive the honor. The award was established by the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation.

Needlman has been a teacher at the Lab Schools since 1964. She is a frequent contributor to educational journals and teachers' magazines on topics related to teaching science and human rights to young children. She also conducts workshops for teachers across the country on both of these topics, and she writes a monthly column, "The Doctor and His Mom," with her son, Robert Needlman, that appears in Early Childhood Today.