Darcy Pippins is in her 28th year of teaching Spanish at Norman High School.
But Pippins does more than just teach. She inspires others to do the same.
“I cannot tell you the number of teachers I have encountered who have pointed to Darcy Pippins as a primary influence in their decision to become a teacher,” said Dominie Dew, an instructional coach at Norman High School whose two daughters took Pippins’ classes.
Pippins, who is also the chair of the school’s world languages department, is the recipient of the 2026 Medal for Excellence in Secondary Teaching.
In 2014, Pippins had the idea to start an elementary Spanish program after teaching her daughter’s Spanish class once a week. She got her advanced Spanish students involved, and the program expanded rapidly. This year, 61 high school students volunteered, allowing the program to reach 27 fourth and fifth grade classrooms across six elementary schools. Pippins works with student teachers to plan lessons, and each week, they teach for 30 minutes. In 2016, the program won the Global Engagement Initiative Award from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Many student teachers have gone on to become educators. One of Pippins’ first program participants is now a world languages teacher who was Norman Public Schools’ first district teacher of the year finalist.
In her own classroom, Pippins works hard to provide the personalized communication her students need to grow. She uses Acquisition Driven Instruction methods and reading strategies, along with techniques like ClipChat, where she plays video clips and then asks comprehensible questions in Spanish.
“I learned that by keeping activities novel in class, students are more engaged and stress-free, which facilitates language acquisition,” Pippins said.
Pippins presents at language conferences across the country, and in 2025, she hosted an international language conference that drew attendees from 30 states and five countries to Norman High School. She is a former president of the Oklahoma Foreign Language Teachers’ Association.
Pippins, who is a Norman High School graduate, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Oklahoma and is a National Board Certified Teacher.
She has been named World Language Teacher of the Year for the state and southwest region and is a past finalist for National World Language Teacher of the Year.
“She has opened a door of opportunity for both of my daughters to communicate in another language and fall in love with another culture,” Dew said.
