Even though Amy Robinson retired from public education, she still had a desire to teach students and decided she wasn’t done educating the youth of Vicksburg.
The seventh- and eighth-grade history teacher has been named a Teacher of the Year nominee from Porters Chapel Academy. Robinson has been at Porters Chapel for four years.
“I just couldn’t stay home,” she said. “I started working at Porters Chapel because I just knew I wasn’t through.”
One of her favorite things about teaching is that every day is new and different.
Watching her students get excited about new subject matter is the most rewarding part of her job.
Robinson also appreciated the fact that her students seem to really enjoy coming to her class. Sometimes they leave her notes on their work, which keeps her going.
“Every day those kids come in excited to learn and excited to see you,” Robinson said. “They are the ones who make my day.”
In her history class, she makes sure her students can identify the area they are studying on a map and has them compare the area from that time period to what it looks like now in terms of name, government and more.
“Expanding student awareness of other cultures is a major component of my classroom,” she said.
She said the classroom should never be boring, and by having interactive lessons with class discussion is a way she keeps her students excited and attentive. Robinson lets her students have a hand in their learning by using peer tutoring for test preparation. She also encourages her students to improve their grades by having a friendly competition where she posts test score percentages for each class.
Robinson said many members of her family, including her mother, were educators, which helped inspire her career choice.
When she was younger, she had an instinctive love for helping children and spent time babysitting and teaching Bible classes.
“I was always drawn to children. It just seemed to be a natural thing for me,” Robinson said.
She has an associate degree in general education from Hinds Community College and a bachelor’s degree in elementary education (kindergarten through eighth grade) from Mississippi State University.
“I teach because of the difference a quality education makes in a child’s life,” Robinson said.
For 27 years Robinson has taught students in Mississippi.
She spent one semester teaching kindergarten in Clarksdale before coming Vicksburg and teaching first and second grade for two years at Bovina, four years a Beechwood and seven years at Redwood.
Then, Robinson transitioned to Warren Central Junior High to teach seventh grade social studies for 11 years before retiring.
She said she’ll fully retire when teaching stops being fun.
“When I feel like I’m not effective anymore, then I’ll know it’s time to go home,” she said.
During her career, Robinson has been a member of Phi Delta Kappa, the Parent Teacher Association at each school where she taught, the American Federation of Teachers and the Mississippi Professional Educators.
Twenty-one teachers in Warren County were nominated for teacher of the year.
The Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce has selected a panel of educators to interview each school’s chosen teacher and will choose one elementary and one secondary teacher of the year on Feb. 15. Both teachers will receive $1,000.
Today’s story is the 14th in a series of articles on each teacher up for the honor of the Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce’s Teacher of the Year.