By Brittany Kirke
A love letter for our educators: As a teacher, you must learn how to garden. You take the seeds that are our children and plant them in soil that is rich with creativity and individuality. You nourish them daily with knowledge and experience. And as these seeds continue to be cared for by the hands that planted them, they grow. Our students blossom into young adults with a passion to spark change in our community. And when you get the chance to step back and look at your garden, all the lives that you’ve touched and the minds that you’ve taught, there are truly no words to describe the amount of pride you have for every branch they stepped out on and every leaf they turned. However far they have come, you helped them along the way. So, thank you, to all our educators and support staff who come to work every day with our children’s future at the forefront of their minds. We appreciate you.
One such teacher is Mr. Charles Stephenson, a 9th grade Pre-AP English teacher at J.R. Arnold High School (8 years) and adjunct professor at Florida State University, Panama City (2 years). He grew up in Dothan, Alabama but was a frequent visitor to Panama City Beach during family vacations, saying “it became a second home.” He started at the University of Montevallo in Alabama and received his bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts in Acting and Directing. He continued at Montevallo to get his master’s degree in English Language Arts and then moved to Chicago and taught kids in the inner city for 17 years. “It was certainly a way to cut my teeth in my profession, but I loved it. I loved the kids, they were incredible. And I learned a lot about treating students individually and learning their context and their story. It’s so important to understand where they’re coming from all over and not just in my class.”
Students are pulled in all sorts of directions, and with the events over the course of the past three years (especially in Bay County), Mr. Stephenson looks forward to being there for them and helping them face their adversities. “What I like the most about teaching English, whether they’re freshmen in high school or freshman in college, is helping them find their voice as a writer. Writing is power, it becomes your identity. It tells a story of who we are as people in these communities. And when you’re writing your story, whether that’s a narrative, an argument, or information, you’re finding out who you are. We get to see [these students] embark on this incredible journey of becoming the adults that they admire so much.”
At FSUPC, Mr. Stephenson talks about their composition program and its successful merging of visual text with written text that empowers students to learn about the new modalities of multimedia. “It’s exciting to be a part of something so powerful and progressive.”
Outside of the classroom, Charles enjoys hiking with his husband Chris and the pair have a cute cat to keep them company. If you’re lucky, you may see him fly by you on his bike at the Conservation park.
From the writers at PCB Life to Mr. Stephenson and all of our educators, thank you.
