Kayty is known for her innovative teaching methods, and inspires a love of learning in the halls of Tupelo High School.
MJ: Can you tell me about your journey to becoming a teacher?
KR: “I actually accidentally became a teacher, I think I went to college and got a degree in communications with an emphasis in public relations and a minor in Spanish. And I just always loved Spanish in high school and took it as much as I could took it all the way through college, but didn’t necessarily plan to like, do anything with it career wise, I thought I was going to be like a public relations, young professional and work my way up into some kind of business position. And so the summer after I graduated college, I didn’t have a full time job. And I had decided to try maybe to go the teaching route just because I was about to get married.And my sister was a teacher, my aunt was teacher, my cousin was a teacher. And so they had all gone through the alternate route program, which is where you, you can be a teacher, even if you don’t have an education degree, and you just do a, like a three week class in the summer, and then like non Saturdays. And so I had gone through the ultimate route program that summer after I graduated college. And so I still wasn’t sure if I was going to be a business person, or if I wanted to be a teacher. And so I was trying to get a job as a public speaking teacher, because of my communication degree. Well, I could not find a job after I went through that month, that summer program, I could not find a job as a public relations teacher. So that’s actually when I went to work at a law office. Well, then my cousin called me who was working at Shannon in high school, and she said, Hey, our Spanish teacher just left, like, Can’t you teach Spanish? Don’t you? Like, know, a lot of Spanish? And I was like, Oh, well, I guess I could. So I actually wound up having to take like, three more hours to get my teaching certificate, but three more hours to get my Spanish certification. And then, so that’s kind of how I became a Spanish teacher.”
MJ: “What’s your favorite subject to teach?”
KR: “Spanish is definitely my favorite subject to teach, it’s fun. I love it.”
MJ: “How do you engage students who seem to lose interest?”
“I’m inspiring students, that how do I engage students who seem to lose interest, that can be really difficult, because this is a class that a lot of people, if they’re not gonna maybe do some kind of international business, or if they’re not immediately go into a Spanish speaking country, or, you know, they don’t really know anybody that speaks Spanish, they can, you know, just sort of see it as not useful or unnecessary, and they just kind of want to finish it to get credit for it. And so, I mean, obviously, I know, every teacher says, like, oh, relationships, relationships, you know, that’s how you engage students. And yeah, I mean, that is true, you do have to build a relationship with them. But sometimes the relationship is not enough. I definitely think that there are other things. For one besides building a relationship and trying to just be human and honest and open with them. You know, I think if I go out of my way to try to plan engaging lessons, lessons that are actually fun, and when I teach them and when I’m, you know, delivering the content to the students, if I can try to do it in like a fun interactive way.”
