LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON - For the third year in a row a teacher at the school in Fort Simpson has been recognized by the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association.

Sherri Thomson, right, the Deh Cho regional president for the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association presents Delainea Anderson with a laptop on March 8 she won through the Thank You for Making a Difference initiative. Anderson wrote her winning submission on teacher Doris Pellissey, left. - photo courtesy of Sherri Thomson

Doris Pellissey, the Class 4 teacher at Bompas Elementary, is one of two winners for this years' Thank You for Making a Difference initiative.

The initiative, which is now in its 14th year, is designed to increase public awareness of the work teachers do, said Gayla Meredith, the co-ordinator of member services for the association.

Each year, from mid-January to mid-February, students in schools across the territory are encouraged to write submissions about a teacher who has made a difference in their lives. People always have a teacher at some point who they can stop and reflect on, Meredith said.

The entries are collected at the school level where a draw is held. The winning submission advances to the grand draw. This year, there were more than 2,500 submissions, 700 more than last year.

"That's incredible," she said.

Dan Knox, a science teacher at Sir John Franklin High School, won the Yellowknife grand prize while Pellissey won the prize for the rest of the territory. Other winners at Bompas have included Kelley Andrews-Klein in 2009 and Bernice Gargan in 2010.

Each teacher received First Air tickets for two to Edmonton. The students who wrote the submissions won laptops.

Delainea Anderson, 10, wrote the winning submission about Pellissey. Anderson, now a Class 5/6 student, had Pellissey as her teacher last year.

"She's the best teacher I've ever had," Anderson said.

"She forced me to do work and she made me pass my grade."

Anderson said she was very excited to win a laptop and plans to use it for schoolwork and playing games.

This is the first time in her teaching career that Pellissey has won an award of this kind.

"I was very happy and honoured to receive this award," she said.

Pellissey, who's originally from Wrigley, has been teaching since the early 1980s.

"Education has always been important to me right from an early age," she said

Pellissey remembers when she was four she would walk to school every day with her older siblings and ask the teacher if she could join them. The teacher finally gave her a pair of skates and told her to stay home until next year.

"When I did start school I was hooked," she said.

Pellissey used to play school after classes were done, casting herself in the role of the teacher and her friends as the students. By the age of 8, she'd made it her goal to become a teacher.

Pellissey's father Wilson Pellissey influenced her goal. From an early age, her father instilled the importance of education in her and her siblings. He encouraged us to continue in school because he thought it was important for the future, she said.

He knew things would change and said education was the key to unlocking doors to the positive things in life, said Pellissey.

"Most importantly he didn't want us to live the hard life he did," she said.

In addition to education Pellissey also believes language and culture are important and is concerned that many students can understand South Slavey but can't respond in it.

To retain the language, students need to be taught in Slavey from an early age and the education system needs to adapt to allow that, Pellissey said.

Pellissey refers back to her father. He believed youth need to be educated to become doctors and teachers and other professionals so aboriginal people can be self-sufficient while also keeping their language.

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