Debbie Henney, FTE Director of Curriculum Receives Bessie B Moore Service Award

Foundation for Teaching Economics is proud to announce that Debbie Henney, director of curriculum for the Foundation for Teaching Economics (FTE), was selected as the recipient of the Bessie B. Moore Service Award by the National Association of Economic Educator (NAEE). She was presented the honor at the NAEE conference earlier this month. As one of the featured speakers during the event, Henney gave a lecture on “Saving the World $50 Billion at a Time.”

The Bessie B. Moore Service Award recognizes those who have had a significant impact on the delivery and enhancement of economic education, as well as an affiliation with the National Association of Economic Educators (NAEE) or the Civics and Environmental Education (CEE) organizations.

This award is named in honor of Bessie Grace Boehm Moore’s legacy, who dedicated her life to organize and conduct economic education programs. Moore’s programs gained board and community support, operated on a sound financial basis, reached virtually all Arkansas schools and attained national recognition for teacher curriculum projects, serving as a model to other states.

“It’s not so important that they be able to use the lingo or memorize the shift cost curves. I want them to walk away with just that basic economic way of thinking.”– Debbie Henney 

Debbie has dedicated her career to enhancing economic education as a professor and director of the honors program at Mesa Community College and in her current role as director of curriculum for the FTE. Prior, she spent 10 years teaching economics to high school students, was the executive director of the Arizona Council on Economic Education and the president of the Arizona Council for the Social Studies.

“I have worked closely with Debbie for over 15 years and there is no one more deserving of this award. She is a shining example of our faculty, and we are honored to have her as our curriculum director.”– Ted Tucker, Executive Director of FTE

In a recent episode of the Liberty + Leadership Podcast, Henney shared that she approaches her lessons as if she’s giving the students “the only economics class they’ll ever have.”

“It’s not so important that they be able to use the lingo or memorize the shift cost curves,” she explained. “I want them to walk away with just that basic economic way of thinking. So that wherever they go, they can be that critical thinker.”

In addition to her classroom instruction, Henney writes economic education lessons for the K-12 classroom and regularly presents workshops, in-service trainings and week-long residential programs for schools, teachers and students in Arizona and around the country.

Ted Tucker, executive director of TFAS high school programs, said Debbie is an exemplary model of an FTE-trained teacher as he congratulated her on the honor.

“I have worked closely with Debbie for over 15 years and there is no one more deserving of this award,” he said. “She is a shining example of our faculty, and we are honored to have her as our curriculum director. She knows how to engage a classroom with ideas that stick, teaching students how to apply the economic way of thinking in their everyday lives, while at the same time instilling a passion for economic freedom.”

FTE congratulates Debbie Henney on this well-deserved honor! Hear more about Debbie’s profound teaching career on the Liberty + Leadership Podcast.