Third Generation Teachers: It’s a Family Tradition

Afirst-year teacher who teaches third grade at Red Bud Elementary School in Gordon County, Calli Davis is the daughter of two teachers. Her mom, 29-year teaching veteran Lynn Davis, taught elementary school for 12 years and is now a teaching as a profession instructor at Calhoun High School. Her dad, Michael, is a P.E. teacher and football coach at Rabun County High School.

Davis’ grandfather, Ray Lamb, retired from teaching in 1989 after teaching and coaching football for more than 30 years. She also has an uncle and three aunts who are all distinguished coaches and teachers.

Davis had the unique experience of having both parents as teachers while in high school. She took teaching courses from her mom, who was also her tennis coach, and her dad was her weight training coach during her time on the basketball and tennis teams.

“Maybe it was the teacher’s kid in me, but I always loved building relationships with my teachers,” said Davis. “Growing up with my grandfather and parents, they were always big on relationships, which had a big impact on me wanting to be a teacher.”

The profound impact her parents and grandfather had on their former students is something Davis has witnessed firsthand all of her life.

“I’ve seen kids and adults come up to my grandfather, who is now in his late 80s, and say what an impact he had on them and the same happens with my mom and dad,” said Davis. “They have always said that you have to let kids know you care. The more you build those relationships, the more you will get out of those kids. That has really helped me in the classroom.”

Davis said her mom is her main sounding board when she needs teaching advice.

“I definitely ask my mom for a lot of advice,” said Davis. “I talk to her every day, and she shares strategies to help with all kinds of things.”

For Lynn, having her daughter follow in her footsteps was welcome news.

“I was thrilled. She’s teaching third grade, which is what I taught,” said Davis. “Teaching is tough and teaching in a pandemic is really tough but the rewards outweigh the negative. I told her one of the biggest things is to be flexible. A lot of the time, everything gets pulled out from under you. You have to be flexible and go with the flow.”

Calli Davis (center), a third-grade teacher at Red Bud Elementary School in Gordon County with her mother, Lynn Davis, and grandfather, Ray Lamb. Lynn, a 29-year teaching veteran, is the Teaching as a Profession instructor at Calhoun High School. Lamb retired in 1989 after teaching for over 30 years.

Davis welcomes students back to the classroom.

Stella Ellenwood is a third-generation math teacher. Today, both Stella and her mom, Jan Oliver, teach math at Tattnall County High School in Reidsville. This past school year was Stella’s first teaching. It was her mom’s 32nd.

Stella’s grandmother, Jayne Bennett, also taught math for 28 years before retiring in 1999.

Both Stella and her mom teach Algebra II? though Ellenwood says they have very different teaching styles. Ellenwood learned how tough her mom was as a teacher when she was as a student in her mom’s class her freshman and senior years of high school.

“My Mom has a reputation before people get to her class of being very hard,” said Ellenwood. “But then, in college, I had so many friends call and say, ‘Stella, if it weren’t for Mrs. Jan, I wouldn’t have been able to pass algebra or calculus.’”

Ellenwood says she remembers her mom always providing real-world math lessons when she was young — quizzing her in the car on multiplication tables or asking her to calculate how much she would save when an item was 25 percent off in the store.

“I constantly solved the math around me and felt confident because I practiced it all of the time,” said Ellenwood. “I saw it as useful.”

For Oliver, having her daughter in class also taught her a lot about her own performance.

“It helped me a lot at the time because I got to see both sides of the coin — how I was doing in class, how she was doing, and how it affected her at home,” Oliver said. “To mentor her now has been the same type of experience. There’s so much I had forgotten about what happens to a new teacher.”

Ellenwood tries to model what she learned from her mom — teaching students practical, dayto-day applications of the math they learn in class. She also hopes to impact her students the way her mom has impacted students over the years.

“As often as I can, I try to give real-world examples. I try to make it relevant to them,” said Ellenwood. “Even now as a teacher, I have students come up to me and say — your mom is a very good teacher. I would love to get to the point where students say, ‘Mrs. Ellenwood is a really good teacher.’” n

Three generations of math teachers: Jayne Bennett (retired), Stella Ellenwood and Jan Oliver.

Ellenwood teaches Algebra 2 at Tattnall County High School during her first year as a teacher.