Creativity and learning were on display during the ninth annual Better Speech and Hearing Month celebration at UFT headquarters on May 19. More than 300 speech and language teachers and their students gathered to honor their accomplishments in the classroom. Awards were given for artwork expressing the hopes, dreams and ideas of students who are overcoming communication challenges. “We picked the best of the best in every district,” said Mindy Karten Bornemann, the speech improvement chapter leader. Among the winners: A student who worked with a speech therapist using the Eye Gaze assistive technology to communicate with her, even making jokes; and a little girl who is a stutterer who read her speech to the audience. UFT President Michael Mulgrew greeted the gathering. “You make an enormous difference in the lives of our students every day,” he said. Fifteen teachers were honored for community service and contributions to the classroom. The Friends of the Chapter award went to the UFT Teacher Center, Western Kentucky University and city and state education officials who helped launch a distance-learning program 13 years ago to help address a shortage of speech teachers; there are now 3,000 speech teachers in the chapter. “They did extraordinary work on behalf of speech therapists and the department,” said Bornemann.