TEACHER OF THE YEAR FINALIST: Rebecca Strickland’s life has come full circle

ALBANY — Growing up, Lake Park Elementary English Language Arts teacher Rebecca Strickland never thought about being anything other than a teacher.

“I was raised in a family of teachers, and education was and is a foremost priority,” Strickland, one of eight finalists for Dougherty County’s 2017-18 Teacher of the Year award, said. “In addition to having education ingrained in my blood, I was blessed to have some of the best teachers in the profession growing up in the Dougherty County School System.

“The main factor that influenced me to become a teacher was the amazing teachers at home and in school who paved my educational path.”

The key to reaching children, Strickland said, is to make learning fun.

“I was extremely fortunate to have remarkable teachers who made learning fun and showed their students that they loved education,” Strickland said. “They were my idols. I remember teachers who wrote and sang their own songs to teach us the planets of the solar system, teachers who stood on desks and danced to make us laugh and remember our multiplication facts, teachers crying and consoling students when their pets died, and teachers buying shoes for students when they needed them.

“These things stick in my mind more than any grade I ever received.”

After graduating from the University of Georgia with bachelor’s (2003) and master’s (2005) degrees in Early Childhood Education, Strickland’s life has, in many respects, come full circle.

“My first year teaching in the Dougherty County School System, I found myself in the same school and kindergarten classroom where I was a student 18 years earlier,” Strickland said. “It had come full circle for me — I had been given the chance to emulate so many teachers before me who had been such a big part of my life.

“Today, I always tell my students that once they are my student, they are my student for life.”

The 2017-18 Teacher of the Year Dinner will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Hilton Garden Inn on Front Street. The system also will recognize its retiring educators at the event.

In addition to Strickland, the other Teacher of the Year finalists are Jasamine Dixon, Albany Middle School; Jacqueline Floyd, Westover High School; Chevonne Denson, Dougherty High School; Torre’ Mills, Monroe High School; Jordan Waller, Martin Luther King Elementary School; Shane Williams, Lincoln Magnet School, and Lydia Zuern, Sherwood Acres Elementary School.