A day in the life of a teacher isn’t filled with late afternoons spent at home and numerous summer days lying on endless beach vacations, said Leighann Ford.The Piedmont seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher said many non-teachers would like to imagine it that way, but that’s really quite far from the truth.
“I know people think teachers only work 180 days until three in the afternoon, but even in the summer, we’re here working on our classrooms or planning for the next year,” Ford said.
This week is National Teacher Appreciation Week, and Ford hopes that everyone in the community can appreciate the hard work the city’s teachers put in towards educating its children.
On a sunny Thursday morning, the lights were dimmed while a computer projector screen flashed bits and pieces of the class’ latest chapter on “The Early Americas.” The lecture-style class that day on the land mass that once crossed the Bering Straight was Ford’s way of preparing her eighth grade class for their future in the bigger ponds of high school.
“I’ve been trying to get them prepared for the way high school teachers teach class,” she said.
After class, Ford stood calmly near a wall of her classroom, watching students file in and out with various snacks and drinks, all while never having to say a word to keep her class contained.
When Ford began teaching 10 years ago, it was the inspiration of two very special teachers she had at Piedmont High School that sparked her passion for teaching the importance of history and English. “Mrs. Lang and Mrs. Kiser really made me love the subjects,” she said. “That really made me excited about teaching other students about those same subjects.”
Ford said sometimes she hears herself saying things in class her academic inspirations would have said. “Sometimes I catch myself saying, ‘Gosh, that sounds like something Mrs. Lang would say,’” she said with a laugh.
Second grade teacher Janet Mauldin found the same inspiration pushing her to choose her now 21-year career path in a Shades Valley High School algebra teacher named Mrs. Conley.
“She was a wonderful inspiration to me,” Mauldin said. “It really made me want to pass that on to other students later on.”
Mauldin works with around 30 students on improving their skills in various subjects.
During her “intervention time” class, Mauldin had students answer questions from a short story they read. The purpose was to provide reading instruction at each student’s level using a corrective reading program.
Mauldin, who is also the local school technology coordinator, said watching her students grow and learn is what keeps her coming back every day, despite the piles and piles of state and federal lesson plans and paperwork required of her each year.
Just Thursday, Mauldin was working on a technology plan for submission to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation committee.
“There’s just tons and tons of paperwork that no one ever realizes we have to do,” Mauldin said.
Ford said her struggle with teaching is found mostly in a lack of time. While most business professionals get a break at some point in the day, teachers spend every minute of the day with their students, even at lunch. “People don’t realize how little time we actually have,” Ford said.
While most teachers get at least a 45-minute planning period, it is spent grading papers, planning for the next day’s class or catching up on the current one, she said. Many days, Ford takes home her leftover work and even comes early or stays late each day. “There are times when I wake up in the middle of the night and think of something I need to work on for the next day,” she said.
But despite the stress, both teachers said they feel like the work they do each day is well worth it.
A former student of Mauldin’s, and now a Jacksonville State University student, reminds her when she sees him at the gym of why she loves what she does every day. Rafael Graves can remember the time he made “Stone Soup” in Mrs. Mauldin’s class, and remembers why it was so much fun and what the value of its lesson was.
“You just don’t realize the impact of the little things you do in class,” Mauldin said. “Everyday is a new adventure when they’re little.”
Ford remembers a card a parent sent during her second year of teaching that explained how much her son appreciated the kind of teacher Ford is. “Her son said I was a ‘real teacher,’” she said. “I didn’t have to yell or threaten, I just gave assignments and the students knew was expected. I was always very fair.”
“That was a defining moment for me,” Ford said. “I knew then that that was what I needed to continue focusing on and being because that would mean I am a successful teacher. And that’s the teacher I’ve been the past eight years.”
It’s those little things that keep Mauldin and Ford in the classroom every day, in search of that moment when a child finally grasps what they are teaching, the “lightbulb moment,” Ford said.
“When these kids finally get something, the look on their face, they just get so excited,” Mauldin said. “It’s fun to watch that happen.”
By continuing to inspire that moment in their students, teachers like Ford and Mauldin will continue giving back to the teachers that once inspired them. “If I can contribute to this place by making a child smarter, I feel like I’ve given back to the community just as much as it did me when I was growing up.”
