Clarkston Community Schools teacher Daniel Clason has received the 2026 MEA Educational Excellence Award for his instructional leadership and creativity as an eighth and ninth-grade history teacher at Clarkston Junior High School.

A Michigan native who taught in Mississippi and Texas before coming to Clarkston in 2022, Clason embraces project-based learning, helping to run projects that include “Constitution Fashion Shows,” Civil War town hall debates, and an annual tip to Washington, D.C. to see history come alive.

“He leads his department, gives everything he has for his students, and works hard for our local,” said Beth Rogers, a fifth-grade teacher in the district and president of the Clarkston Education Association, who nominated Clason for the award. “We are beyond blessed to have Dan here in Clarkston.”

The biggest project Clason leads is “Traveling Trunks,” in which eighth-grade students curate and replicate artifacts, games and hands-on activities to teach about the American Revolution. Fifth-grade students can then sign the materials out to enhance their learning. Clason said the idea came from the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Miss., which uses such a program to bring learning outside museum walls.

In addition, Clason leads reading apprenticeship sessions with his colleagues.

Stating public education is “the only club I ever wanted to be a member of,” Clason says the many teachers, mentors and support staff he’s encountered over his life and career have helped shape him as an educator — and as a person.

“If I’ve shown any excellence at all, it’s only because I am a sum of greater parts,” Clason says. “My very existence as a teacher, as a human being, is because of all the great influences I’ve had in my life.”