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Published Tuesday, September 23, 2008 in Education
Photo by Brenda Pedraza-Vidamour
Northside’s Helen Scandrick, right, helps Ashlynn Morse and Walter Jones with a scientific classification project.
Scandrick wanted to teach even when she played with dolls
The Times-Herald
Helen Scandrick, 35, who often arranged the dolls in her childhood bedroom as her students, had wanted to teach as long as she could remember.
Born and raised in Atlanta, the University of West Georgia senior now lives in Newnan with her husband, her 15-year-old son and a 7-year-old niece.
While she's not one of the high school graduates of Coweta County's Teacher Pipeline program, Scandrick is one of the lucky ones who got the opportunity to be involve in Pipeline's latest addition -- the employment of seniors in University of West Georgia's education degree program for year-long teacher internships at Coweta schools.
Coweta's Teacher Pipeline is a program that grooms Coweta students interested in becoming educators from middle school to their first year of teaching. It's a project that was introduced in the local school system almost a decade ago to attract the best and brightest middle and high school students to educational careers through the Future Educators Association, a chapter of the Phi Delta Kappa organization.
Scandrick teaches math and science to fifth-graders at Northside Elementary School on Country Club Road in Newnan.
The college interns are the next to last step in the Teacher Pipeline program. First-year teachers are the final product, according to Susan Mullins, who directs the program.
While one of the benefits for the seniors is that the starting salary helps to offset college costs, the Pipeline opportunity for Scandrick means a whole lot more. Her biggest reward has been educating the children.
"Those are my priceless moments because no amount of pay can replace it," she said. "To see that the students, that they're struggling to grasp it and to see that the light bulb finally goes on -- it's very gratifying, no amount of pay can replace that."
She said the only downside in the pilot program is the pressure.
"It's all these eyes on me because everyone wants this program to succeed."
Scandrick's success and passion for teaching has brought on another unexpected benefit. Her younger brother, inspired by her efforts, is also pursuing the profession.
Her advice to him has been to "keep an open mind about everything, and not to listen to anyone," she said, explaining that if she would have listened to others and their accounts of their teaching experiences, she would have been dissuaded from pursuing a lifelong dream.
"I work with wonderful children every day," she said.
Before coming to Coweta, Scandrick worked as an administrative assistant with Delta Air Lines for eight years and was the assistant director of an after-school program in Atlanta. She also regularly tutored struggling youngsters on Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests and SATs.
Her 15-year-old is attending a magnet high school in Atlanta, and the 7-year-old is attending Newnan Crossing Elementary. She said her son plans to continue in the Atlanta school's special program, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, because it allows him the opportunity to graduate high school ahead of his peers and with two years of college credits.
Scandrick shares her enthusiasm for teaching with Kati Ferrell, another intern in the Pipeline program who is assigned to Northside Elementary.
Ferrell is a 22-year-old native of Newnan who attended North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega. She returned to her hometown and UWG for her fourth year of college.
"It's like a magnet. It's like the strongest magnet you ever had to fight," she said, adding that she also returned home every summer to work at the Redneck Gourmet restaurant in downtown Newnan.
Ferrell was part of the Pipeline project while attending Coweta public schools in Newnan. Northside's principal, Dr. Dana Ballou, was Ferrell's fourth-grade teacher when Ferrell attended Elm Street Elementary. Kati Ferrell's uncle is the county's tax commissioner, Tommy Ferrell.
"But don't write that. He'll just get the big head," she said, adding that her uncle is very proud of her.
She said she became interested in teaching because of her great experiences in elementary school and bad experiences with math in middle school.
"In elementary school, I had wonderful teachers," she said. "They were so loving. It didn't matter what you were doing."
She said, as a result, she was a good student but started struggling with math as she approached middle school and high school.
Wanting to make it better, she got involved with Coweta's Teacher Pipeline program.
Both she and Scandrick said some of the most helpful aspects of the program is the guidance of a mentor teacher and being able to sit in other teachers' classes during the week. Scandrick and Ferrell are supervised at the school by mentor teacher Katie Fleck.
Ferrell said she's gained the most from observing how teachers organize and prepare for class that day, as well as learning how to polish her own student management skills. She looks to Jennifer Marvin's skills in her first-grade class at Northside in both of those areas.
"Her organization is something I strive for. I really struggled with how effective it was until I saw the way she treats her children. She can just stand there, and all she has to do is look at them."
Scandrick said she benefits from Fleck's guidance on how to handle unmotivated and struggling students.
Both interns were surprised over the amount of administrative paperwork, and neither realized the full significance of the program until they got involved in it.
"Every teacher who I have talked with, and it doesn't matter who they are -- young or retired -- everyone of them tells me 'I wish I would have had this experience.' All summer long they were telling me this, but right now I know how great it is," Ferrell said.