Darby Baird is a sixth grade language arts and history teacher at Homewood Middle School. In this interview, she shares what she loves about teaching and talks about some educators who inspired her.
Q: How long have you been a teacher and what subject do you teach?
A: This is my 19th year of teaching. I teach sixth grade language arts and history at Homewood Middle School, and I absolutely love it.
Q: What inspired you to become an educator?
A: I just always loved being at school. I loved learning. And, my aunt taught at my elementary school, and she would let me come in the afternoons and play school and pretend and do a lot of teacher things. And, she would also let me read to her students sometimes and ask them questions. And, I just really enjoyed it and it just always felt like that was what I was called to do.
Q: Tell us about your favorite teacher from when you were in school.
A: I had some amazing teachers growing up. Ms. Stroop was so passionate about what she was teaching that it felt more important to her students.
Coach Ball made our activities and lessons so interactive and fun. Coach Maddox was great about building relationships with his students in class.
Ms. Bailey, Ms. Dobbs, Ms. Miller, Mr. Warlick; I feel like they were so good at making me feel seen as a student, and that's so important.
Q: What is the most rewarding part of being a teacher?
A: When you see a student struggle with something and you try all these different strategies to try to reach that student and then you finally see that lightbulb moment—I think that that's the most rewarding part of teaching.
But, it's also when those former students come back to see you and they tell you that they missed your class and that they remember some things from your class and they just want to check in and say hey—that just makes my heart so happy.
