BIOGRAPHY

JJamesville Elementary teacher Amy Barsanti is the district’s Teacher of Excellence for 2022.

She was elected to the position by her peers, then voted on by a committee formed from leaders in the county. Barsanti has taught for 32 years, the last seven in Jamesville. It is evident to people whose lives she touches, she is crazy about her job. She grew up in Baltimore, MD and moved to New York after graduating college, to pursue her love of acting. “I was substitute teaching to support my acting habit,” she explained, laughing. Eventually, she began teaching full-time in the Big Apple. It was here she met her husband, Hank, who was in the restaurant business. They’ve been married 32 years. She credits her love of other cultures to her time spent in New York. “That opened up my mind to a lot,” she said. The Barsantis ultimately moved to

Plymouth, by way of Nags Head, where they owned property. In Plymouth, Amy taught at Pines

Elementary for 18 years (now closed). She and Hank, (now retired), raised three girls there. They decided when the girls were young to travel as much as they could to give their daughters a chance to experience other cultures, as they had while living in New York. “They were young enough that [traveling] impacted them very strongly,” she said.

“The experience of being [in someone else’s culture] gives you a level of empathy. I think that it is very valuable to have that sense at some point in your life, of being in someone else’s place.” Barsanti incorporates her love of travel and culture into her classroom, expanding her students’ horizons. She uses artifacts, songs and even food, allowing them insight into ways other people live. She loves to celebrate and believes a lot

Gratitude and celebration are two things she wants her children to come away with.

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can be learned by studying the holidays of other countries.

She orders “Culture Kits” that are filled with artifacts from the countries they study.

“Carolina Navigators allows you to order the boxes online. They FedEx them to you free. It’s like a library. It’s a repository for artifacts. You keep it for a month, then send it back,” she said.

They are a key she uses to unlock children’s curiosity.

“I do inquiry based social studies,” she explains. “Before we talk about a country, they look at the stuff in the [Culture Kit] and see what they can figure out about the country we will be studying.”

She encourages them to figure things out by observing, asking questions and discussing their theories.

“I love watching that process,” she said.

As an example, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is in September, so she has ordered the Israel Culture Kit to come at the end of the month.

“Then we have the one from Mexico, for Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead), coming in October. We will do the box from China for the Lunar New Year,” she added.

Amy has traveled the past two summers overseas with educational scholarships.

“During the pandemic I had a lot of time for reflection. I applied for a Fulbright [scholarship] and got sent to Iceland,” she said. “We were gone for a whole month with educators from all over the U.S.”

She continued, “I thought, if I can do this, maybe I can do something else.”

She applied, and was granted a scholarship to travel with the group Go Global NC to Africa, visiting the countries of Zimbabwe and Senegal last summer.

“In Senegal, we were collecting digital artifacts. UNC is going to have a collection of lesson plans and digital artifacts for K-5 teachers. It is being funded by the Oak Foundation and its mission is to dispel myths about contemporary Africa,” she said.

“We actually got to teach in schools. Two of the schools we spent the most time at had too many students and not enough trailers. When we got there, there was a class lined up in their desks, outside. A lot of the kids walk miles to school,” she added.

She was struck at how grateful the children were.

“They value education so much,” she said. “They have this deep connection with the outdoors and they don’t feel under privileged. Every class I was in, there was joy, and singing. I learned a lot about gratitude. I don’t know if that can be taught, but it can definitely be modeled.”

Gratitude and celebration are two things she wants her children to come away with.

“For a long chunk of my career, I was really committed to teaching tolerance,” she said.

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“But in the last couple of years, I have realized there is no excuse for tolerance when there can be celebration.”

She realizes in Eastern North Carolina, there is a lot to celebrate about the culture.

“We think we are pitiful when we think about the things we don’t have — like infrastructure and diversity. But there is something about our kids’ connection to the land, their heritage, their culture, their values and their food – that is really comparable to a lot of other places,” she explains.

“We should be on the map for this. Instead of thinking, ‘why can’t we have the things they have in Raleigh?’… They just don’t know how good we have it. And I don’t think our kids do either,” she said.

She is working on ways to instill this thinking into her kids.

“I love Martin County. Jamesville is a little slice of heaven,” she continued.

Studying other countries’ traditions helps kids realize they have their own traditions.

“Food is a great point of entry,” she said. She said in her classroom Friday is FRIED-day.

“Monday is FUN-day; Tuesday is NEWSday; Wednesdays is FRIENDS-day and Thursday is WORDS-day,” she added.

Every day, right after lunch, she captivates students, as she reads to them, tapping into her inner actress.

“We have a really short window [after lunch] and it’s not worth starting anything new, so we read aloud from long chapter books,” she said.

She also uses her acting background to write plays for her children to perform throughout the year.

Barsanti teaches her students to handwrite letters to pen pals in Raleigh. They learn the proper way to address an envelope. And hand-write thank you letters to each guest that visits.

Additionally, the students have pen pals in England, whom they communicate with through email.

Outside the classroom, Barsanti enjoys acting with Martin Community Players.

“After 30 years, I got back on the stage,” she said.

Most recently she played the LaMerle Verdeen Minshew in the “Last Round-Up of the Guacamole Queens.”

She is grateful to have a supportive husband.

“He really is awesome,” she said. “I was gone last summer for a month, and this past summer for almost a month.”

Her next adventure will be leading an E.F. Tour to the Dominican Republic, for which she will travel to Rome next month to receive training.

“Travel has infused life into me, and into my practices, and my classroom,” she said. “I’m 62 and I can’t imagine retiring.”

Deborah Griffin is News Editor of The Enterprise and a Staff Writer for Eastern North Carolina Living.