Veteran Teachers

SUCCESS AS A GEORGIA EDUCATOR: Notes from the Field

By Scotty Brewington

What are the fundamentals of success for a Georgia educator? We asked teachers throughout the state to share their insights, inspiration, and advice.

We spoke with veteran teachers, third-generation teachers, those relatively new to the classroom, and one former business professional who changed careers in order to pursue his passion to teach.

In the following pages, you’ll learn what these exceptional educators had to say — what works, what doesn’t, what they wish they’d known at the outset, and what they recommend for longterm success in the profession.

Notes from the Field: Veteran Teachers

It’s all about relationships. Get to know your students.

Tyler Thomas serves as an academic coach and gifted lead at Coosa Middle School in Floyd County. Before taking on his current role this past school year, Thomas was a middle school math and language arts teacher for eight years. In his experience, building relationships with students is absolutely critical to a successful classroom.

“The biggest thing is building relationships with the kids,” said Thomas. “If you don’t invest in students outside of the desk they are sitting in, you are not fulfilling everything you can do as a teacher. There are kids all over the world who are just seen as a student at a desk — when, often, they are experiencing more at their age than many people experience in a lifetime. We have to see each kid as a whole person.”

Thomas, who has spent his teaching career in Title I schools, said that relationships are especially important with students who have been raised in challenging and sometimes unsupportive environments. These factors — those outside of a teacher’s control — can be the biggest challenge in educating students, Thomas said.

Tyler Thomas, academic coach and gifted lead at Coosa Middle School in Floyd County, teaches students in Guyana, South America over the summer.

To engage with his students, Thomas makes it a priority to get to know them outside of the classroom. This includes going to their sporting events and band concerts and getting to know their families.

“I try to relate to what they are going through,” said Thomas. “They see me as a person — not just a teacher. You have to maintain boundaries but still show that you care about them.”

Sara Wilder, who has taught elementary school for 15 years — 10 of them in Lowndes County — agrees. Early in her career, she remembers an eight-year-old student in her class who was the oldest of six children. After getting to know the student, she learned that he was in charge of watching his younger siblings each day until his mom returned home from work. These extra responsibilities were why he was often missing homework assignments. With this knowledge, Sara was better able to help him succeed.

“I care about each of my students, and I want them to care about me. I want my students to know bits about my personal life outside of the classroom, and likewise, I want a broader picture of my students’ lives to better understand how their home-life experiences affect their learning,” said Wilder, who was Lowndes County’s 2015-16 Teacher of the Year and a 2017 finalist for Georgia Teacher of the Year. Today, she is a third-grade teacher at Westside Elementary School. “Knowing my students and caring about them in and out of school are the connections that make me a good teacher.”

Build a support network. Teachers need teachers.

Collaboration with peers also allows teachers to share and analyze data to identify areas for student growth as well as provide feedback to one another about what instruction methods are working — and not working — in the classroom so that adaptations can be made, said Wilder. When teachers are continually willing to improve their craft by working together, the teaching profession is strengthened, and student performance improves.

“Collaborating and building strong relationships with other teachers is so important,” said Wilder. “I am mentoring a first-year teacher now, and the first thing I did with her — just like I do with my students — is to let her know that it is okay to make mistakes. I had to show her that I needed her as much as she needed me. She is 23 years old and has taught me so much. If I was closed off and thought I knew it all, I would have lost the benefit of her youth and fresh ideas.”

In her 29 years of teaching, Carla Cook knows how important it is to support and collaborate with other teachers.

“Like they say, teamwork makes the dream work. The question is, do you want to be on an island by yourself or on a cruise ship with others for a year?” said Cook, who teaches kindergarten at Rosemont Elementary in Troup County where she has taught since 1996. “Teachers need other teachers. You need to have a team to bounce things

Sara Wilder, a third-grade teacher at Westside Elementary in Lowndes County, works with a group of students.

Stay flexible. There is more than one way to reach a child.

When it comes to success in the classroom, there isn’t just one “right” way to reach students and teach content.

“Teachers must be flexible in order to teach to a multitude of cultures, learning styles, and levels of skill because it is impossible to say matter-of-factly that one particular way of teaching is most effective,” said Wilder. “I make a significant effort to get to know my students’ needs and the ways in which they learn so I can shape and reshape my classroom based on these strengths and weaknesses and adapt my curriculum accordingly. There is no one way to teach. We have to keep recreating our craft.”

In her classroom, Cook administers some basic assessments at the beginning of the school year to see where her students are academically and then places them in groups based on the data. The key, she said, is to allow those groups to be fluid and flexible so students have the opportunity to grow and evolve.

She remembers one student who struggled at the beginning of the year and was placed in one of the lower-level groups for reading instruction. But as the year progressed, Cook saw that he was cognitively improving and could continue to increase his ability to read on a higher level if

off of and to validate your own thinking. Whether you are a beginning teacher or a veteran, sitting down with your team and making plans is incredibly important.”

One of the strategies Cook is known for is her creative “callbacks” that help her engage with students. For example, when a student does something exceptional in class, Cook will call out, “Mic Drop!” Students then hold out their hands and “drop” the invisible mic in celebration. Or, when she needs quiet in the room, Cook calls out, “Click-click,” to which students reply in unison “Click-click” as they “turn their volume off” and stop talking.

Over the years, teachers she mentored have adopted callbacks in their own classrooms.

“I once had a young student teacher who was really struggling. We had a lot of sit-downs. Then he came up with a few callbacks of his own,” said Cook. His unique callback, an homage to professional wrestling legend Ric Flair, was “two claps and a ‘Wooo!’” Cook explained. “The kids loved it. It was his engagement strategy for pulling them back in.”

Carla Cook, a kindergarten teacher at Rosemont Elementary in Troup County, teaching in-person and virtually.

Be a good listener. Sometimes it’s all you can do.

For Miguel Gonzales, an English teacher in the Newcomer Academy at Morris Innovative High School in Dalton Public Schools, teaching is deeply personal. Gonzales’ students are middle and high school students who are new to the country and learning English as a second language.

Gonzales himself came to live in the United States in the third grade when he was only eight years old. He remembers having teachers who took him under their wing and helped him succeed. It was those teachers who made him want to become a teacher himself.

“I am of the first generation of college students in my family, and it took a lot of teachers helping me navigate that tricky road of graduating high school and beyond,” Gonzales said. “I model my teaching that way as well. I always say that teaching is my career, but I care about you as a person more than anything.”

Part of teaching students who are new to the country and new English speakers is listening and helping them understand that they are in a safe place with people who are invested in their success. This includes getting to know them and understanding what they are dealing with outside of the classroom.

he were moved to another group. She moved the student and, by the end of the school year, he had qualified for the gifted program.

“If I had not given him the chance to grow, he would have stayed on the same level and never evolved, said Cook. “You have to teach a child on their level but be fluid and flexible and allow them to move. The easy thing to do is to leave them where they are, but you’re not doing the best for the child.”

What’s the best part of your job?

Despite all of the challenges, the best part of teaching is the kids and the laughter, said Wilder.

“The best part of my job is that I get to laugh every single day. I absolutely love and adore children, and I sincerely enjoy my time with them,” she said. “Like they say, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.”

“Laughing with kids, building those relationships, and seeing them outside of school and laughing with them — that’s the best part,” said Thomas. “That is what they will remember. You may be a great teacher of math content, but they will remember the laughter.”

For Cook, the best part of teaching is when she runs into former students who are now adults but still remember her classroom and what they learned from her in kindergarten.

“Every year, I usually have a senior or two who ask me to come back and be honored as their Senior Spotlight Teacher. To have taught them in kindergarten and to have them recognize me as their most influential teacher — it’s the best,” said Cook. “To know that they still remember you and have vivid memories of things you said and did that impacted them — there is nothing better. It’s my life. It’s why I do it.” n

Gonzales remembers his own seventh grade health and P.E. teacher at Dalton Middle School, Carol Satterfield, who had a profound impact on his life and made him want to become a teacher. Satterfield took a special interest in Gonzales and his older brother, even helping him register for college and attending orientation with him.

“If I can help my students with those outside factors, I do. But if it’s something that I can’t help them with — an issue outside of the classroom — then I have to be a good listener and let that be enough,” said Gonzales. “I struggle with that — accepting and listening may be all I can do in certain cases. What they are going through in their personal lives definitely affects them in the classroom and affects you as a teacher. That’s the hardest part.”

Miguel Gonzales teaches English to students at Newcomer Academy in Dalton Public Schools. April Trussell teaches students U.S. history at Lee County High School.

PEER-TO-PEER:

Top Recommendations from Veteran Teachers

“You have to build relationships with students, but you have to have a good working relationship with parents as well. It has to be a team effort where the child sees the teacher and parents working together for their benefit. You also have to build your tribe. Find a group of people you trust to share your challenges and successes. Take it one day at a time. No matter how many veteran teachers you work with, they were all first-year teachers, too. We have all been there.”

— Lea Mitchell, first-grade teacher, Springdale Elementary School, Bibb County (15-year teaching veteran)

“Be willing to try new things and be flexible. Let the kids have the spotlight. It’s not about us — it’s about the kids. Right off the bat, start developing relationships with your students. That is the key to everything. Build relationships and form solid routines. You can’t do the same thing every year or even the same thing for every child. You have to figure out what works.”

— Nancy Nelson, fourth-grade teacher, Jack P. Nix Elementary School, White County (27-year teaching veteran)

“Time management — you have to learn how to make time for yourself. It’s so easy for us to be consumed with all that we have to do for our students that we sometimes tend to put them before ourselves. Then, you find yourself in a spiral, and you can become overwhelmed very quickly. It’s important to know who your support group or support person is and that you can go to them anytime. It’s a friendship. We’re not just colleagues — we’re friends.”

— Emma Fettes, Honors Chemistry and AP Environmental Science, Richmond Hill High School, Bryan County Schools (11-year teaching veteran)

“Have fun. Don’t take everything so seriously. Teaching is a hard job. It’s stressful and it’s important, but if you are not enjoying what you are doing and having fun, you will never be successful. It will be life-draining if you don’t enjoy it. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Do what’s best for your kids and the rest will fall into place.”

— Tyler Thomas, Academic Coach and Gifted Lead, Coosa Middle School, Floyd County (Nine-year teaching veteran)

“Having a support network of other teachers is a critical lifeline for new teachers. You have to have someone you feel confident in sharing your successes and struggles. You also have to know when to ask for help. Having that support is a tremendous asset for veteran teachers, too. Teaching is so hard — there’s so much that goes into it.

You need someone who can listen no matter how long you have been

teaching.”

— Brandy Sipling, second-grade teacher, Midland Academy,

Muscogee County School District (21-year teaching veteran)

“Truly get to know your students because if you don’t — if they don’t believe that you understand them and want the best for them — you won’t be able to teach them anything. Once you have trust, then you can get down to the standards and actually teach the content.”

— Miguel Gonzales, MS/HS English, Newcomer Academy, Morris Innovative High School, Dalton Public Schools (Eight-year teaching veteran)

“Everyone wants to be listened to and have their voice heard. Students need a supporter — a listener. As teachers, sometimes we assume we need to do all of the talking, but we need to really listen to their concerns. Any time a student has an opportunity to voice concerns and you listen, it makes a profound impact.”

— April Trussell, 11th-grade US History and AP US History, Lee County High School, Lee County (21year teaching veteran)

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