Hughes jumps into 1st teaching job
Samantha Hughes will start as a resource math teacher at Model High School.
Even though Samantha Hughes has the experience of student teaching under her belt, there is only so much preparation that can ready someone for the first time they’ll have a class of their own, she said.
Hughes, a newly minted graduate of Berry College, will begin her teaching career this morning, as she welcomes Model High students back for the first day of a new school year. She will be teaching resource mathematics for special-education students this year, as well as serving as the competition cheerleading coach — she was a cheerleader at Berry through the first four years of the football program.
The 2013 graduate of Trion High, where she won three state competitive cheerleading championships, in Summerville was a student teacher at Glenwood Primary, teaching first grade. Her new role will be a little different, she admitted. Some of her fellow teachers joked that she had her classroom decorated like it would be for primary school students, but Hughes said she just wanted to make it
into a positive learning environment, for students to draw inspiration from.
The new teacher is definitely nervous about the first day of school, Hughes said, but she mainly just wants her students to feel welcome and comfortable. It’s not that she doesn’t feel prepared; rather, it’s just a completely different experience teaching on her own. She said at times it has felt like there is just all this craziness going on around her, but she has taken comfort in knowing she’s not the only one who feels this way.
Hughes also found comfort in knowing she has support through her mentor right across the hall and her former professors at Berry.
Hughes will be dealing with smaller class sizes, meaning more one-on-one time with students. She said she’s excited to have students work in small groups as a component of the workshop model the system uses and utilize the Chromebooks each of them will have access to.
Coaching will be a breath of fresh air at the end of the day to have some fun, said Hughes.