Head of the class
Pleasant Hill’s Todd Willis is Teacher of the Year
I find an interesting or practical topic and break things down into activities that make the subject exciting and easy to understand for the students.”
Todd Willis, Pleasant Hill Elementary
This year’s DeSoto County Schools Teacher of the Year admits he didn’t know much about public schools until just a few years ago.
Todd Willis, a t hi rd-grade teacher at Pleasant Hill Elementary, grew up on a farm, got a degree in business administration from Harding University and rose through the ranks at First Tennessee Bank to become a regional vice president.
But after the birth of his first child, he began dreaming of someday being a teacher.
Willis a nd his wife, Denise, were already getting a lot of teaching experience homeschooling their four children, now ages 15 to 21, on an eight-acre farm when he decided to go back to school at night.
He earned a master’s degree in elementary education from the University of Mississippi while still working at the bank.
“I learned a lot about teaching concepts, taking jobs that have to be done on the farm, breaking them down by skill level and dividing them up, so the children could understand them and do them well,” Willis said.
“I use those same skills in my classroom. I find an interesting or practical topic and break things
down into activities that make the subject exciting and easy to understand for the students.”
Teaching his own children through agriculture worked so well that Willis made it his goal to bring the farm to his students. Willis’ outdoor classroom is something the likes of which the state of Mississippi had never seen at the elementary level.
In her Teacher of the Year recommendation letter, Cindy HydeSmith, commissioner of the State of Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce wrote, “Mr. Willis’ classroom, I can tell you, is like none other in this state. His classroom workstations are set up to require students to use crucial thinking skills to solve meaningful real-world problems every day ... I am pleased that he has chosen agriculture as the theme of his class but what I think is significant is how he brings out the core math skills students need to meet the new state standards.”