27 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION Brett Bigham, M.S. (2002) BRETT BIGHAM is a graduate of the Portland State University College of Education and was the 2014 Oregon State Teacher of the Year. Bigham has been awarded the prestigious National Education Association Foundation Educator of Excellence award as well as being named the NEA LGBT Teacher Role Model of the Year. In 2017, Bigham traveled to Bangladesh to mentor the country’s first special education teachers. While there, he completed a book to help people with Autism visit the Bangladesh State Museum. Bigham has written more than 170 “Ability Guidebooks” to help visit cultural landmarks and events. These guidebooks began for his own classroom here in Portland, teaching how to visit Portlandia and ride the tram. There are now books in more than 40 countries and include titles such as “I Am Going to Visit the Parthenon,”“I am Going to the Apartheid Museum,” and “I Am Going to Hear Big Ben.” Bigham was named a Global Education Innovator by the MUGU Foundation of India for this work and was named an Ambassador by the Finnish education group HundrEd. As a Leading Educator Ambassador of Equity for the Education Civil Rights Alliance, Bigham is a leading voice on equality issues in American education. During his year of service as Oregon Teacher of the Year, he was told by his supervisor that if he said he was gay publicly, he would be fired. Following the White House Honoring Ceremony, where the Teacher of the Year from each state was honored by President Obama, Brett spoke up as an openly gay teacher for the rights of LGBTQ youth. He was subsequently fired and his fight to retain his job and his rights to free speech went all the way up to the Supreme Court in the form of an Amicus Brief by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Bigham is the co-editor of the National Network of State Teachers of the Year Social Justice Book List, writes an educational column for the Portland State College of Education and has contributed essays to the books “Humans in the Classroom,”“One Teacher in Ten in the New Millennium” and “Gender Diversity and LGBTQ Inclusion in K-12 Schools: A Guide to Supporting Students, Changing Lives.” Bigham teaches K-5 special education in Portland, Oregon, and he cannot wait to see you out in the schools. COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
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