Being the most impactful people in the lives of students is a reason to consider the teaching profession, says the current South Carolina Teacher of the Year.
Braden Wilson, an 11-year veteran who teaches 8th grade social studies at Palmetto Middle School in Anderson District 1, brought her experiences Nov. 1 to the Teacher Cadets of Clinton High School and Laurens District High School. She spoke candidly about her disastrous first year in the classroom, when she got her first job two weeks before the start of school. But, as she stuck with it, she came to a realization - “I don’t deserve to teach somebody’s child if I don’t know them.”
She applies that standard now to her two children’s teachers - “You don’t deserve to teach my children if you don’t know them.”
Wilson projected a montage of some of her teachers onto the Edmunds Hall screen at Presbyterian College and described their influence on her life and career.
“Teachers have been the most impactful people in my life,” she said.
She was destined for teaching. As the first person in her family to attend college, Braden aspired to be a doctor, a college Biology major who would work research in a lab, mostly away from people.
Teacher Cadets changed that for her, but not without push-back. “My dad did not speak to me for a month,” she said.
But, without teaching, she says, “I would probably be crying in a lab somewhere right now.”
It was a challenge, in the beginning, she conceded to the students. As a secondary social studies major, employers wanted to know what she could coach - “I said, ‘Nothing if you want to win a championship.’ The only thing I can run is my mouth.” But her former high school principal intervened for her and set her on her classroom path.
If they want to, she told the assembled Teacher Cadets, they can have that experience, too; and it matters because a career is a long and complex aspect of a person’s life. PC’s Education Department sponsored the annual Teacher Cadets’ visit to campus as an exploration of that aspect of life. In addition to hearing from the SC Teacher of the Year, students toured the campus and sat in on classes. They responded to questions and answers on their phones, and they applied what they have observed about education to a real-life experience.
