Teaching Works

I taught all subjects in elementary for many years and now serve my state as a professional development coordinator, working with teachers to improve student outcomes in math and science!

Through my teaching experience thus far, I have discovered the importance of the teacher as a facilitator, rather than a dictator. When students are encouraged to construct their own learning experiences, they are far more likely to retain information, as well as delve further into the concepts and skills deemed vital to their education. My greatest strengths as a teacher include planning, preparing, and delivering lessons that inspire, captivate, and motivate students. I firmly believe that learning opportunities must be creative, invaluable to the student, and able to enhance the learner’s growth and maturation. Therefore, it is my profound joy to tailor lesson plans to fit the diverse needs and interests of my students. Furthermore, real-world connections, hands-on activities, and cooperative learning projects are the rule, not the exception, in the daily life of my classroom.

In 2010, I was honored to be chosen as the "Outstanding Beginning Teacher of the Year" for my school district, the third largest school district in Mississippi. In 2011, I again was honored to be named "Teacher of the Year" for my school in Brandon, MS. Also during the 2010-2011 school year, I was nominated for my school district's "Teacher of the Year."

In December of 2009, I realized the culmination of a dream several years in the making--I graduated "Summa Cum Laude" from Belhaven University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education.

William Butler Yeats once said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Kahlil Gibran made the following comment about educators: “The teacher, if indeed wise, does not bid you to enter the house of their wisdom, but leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” In examining the beliefs which construct my own philosophy of education, I bring to the table the words of Keats, Gibran, and others like them, who believed that education was more than the putting of knowledge into a student’s mind. Education, as well as the educator, is that which lights a fire in the student’s soul—to live well, work hard, accomplish much, and defy all who would say, “You cannot.” This is my heart’s desire.