Jessica Trimmer teaches Intermediate English at Lewiston Adult Education.

The Maine Adult Education Association presented Jessica Trimmer of Lewiston Adult Education with its Teacher of the Year award recently during its annual conference at the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus. Trimmer joined Lewiston Adult Education in 2006 after working as a lawyer for four years. Tutoring international students while a student at the University of Maine School of Law got her interested in teaching. She has taught classes in Adult Basic Education, English for Speakers of Other Languages, and citizenship, and has assisted inmates at the Androscoggin County Jail get their high school equivalency. She credits her fellow teachers at the Adult Learning Center with helping her when she first started and for their continued support.

Trimmer, who now teaches Intermediate English, said she is impressed by the work ethic of her students, some of whom know six to eight different languages. A comment about community she overheard from a student in class got her thinking about the overall mission of Adult Education. “It struck me that the Learning Center is a place where we come in from different communities and become one,” she said.