I try to lead by example, lead from the front, show no fear and never ask the students to do something I wouldn't do myself. I come to school every day ready to work. I work to prepare challenging lessons that connect students to biology, to Mississippi, and attempt to meet them where they are everyday. When I'm wrong, I admit I'm wrong. When I'm proud of what they have accomplished I let them know. I try to build a team like atmosphere, when we win--we win together; when we fail--we fail together.
While at HW Byers I have served on the Response to Intervention (RTI) team and the Instructional Leadership Team. |
Minds are blown when I’m not in Mississippi and I tell people I teach in rural Mississippi. People know Mississippi exists but there is enigma in how it exists. For some folks my professional life is a double conundrum, why would you go to Mississippi? Why would you teach? Why would you teach in Mississippi?
After I am asked why I teach, people then work through the battery of reasons why no one would ever want to be a teacher: low pay, long hours, dealing with children, dealing with parents, and the list goes on forever. I don't really describe what I do to people who are not teachers or close relatives/friends. I have a hard time describing what I do. I don't like to sound holier than thou, endlessly talking in Mother Teresa type tones on how I’m devoting my life to service, providing knowledge to disadvantaged youth. I wake up and go to work. I like teaching. I like the challenge of teaching in poverty. If I didn’t like teaching, I wouldn’t teach. I would do what I want to do: playing rhythm guitar in a rockabilly band, running a small bakery, building hot rods, working on a shrimp boat in the Gulf of Mexico (wearing the white boots, handling nets, and blowing all my money in New Orleans), working in a machine shop, go to Mexico and drink Mezcal all day. Now however, I’m 33 years old and need to decide on something. I can’t keep rambling. Teaching provides me good work and enough time off to quell my ramblin’ fever. Teaching is the first time I did not have to justify my profession. Working in restaurants, or farming, or whatever I was doing at the time, never in the eyes of my family seemed like a “real job.” Teaching in their eyes is a “real job” and somewhat justifies my education. Although, my choices only need to be justified by me. Teaching is a never ending ecology with undefined dimensions where the environment changes daily. Sometimes the environment grows wild, or need trimmed, or must be tightly controlled. Finding balance, knowing when to let grow or when to intervene, within the undefined space is where I find meaning |