Redd's Interview

Miss Red has been teaching math at South Aiken High School for 23 years. She has taught in three different classrooms and prefers her current small classroom with an office. She chose to teach at South Aiken because they offered her a job right out of college. Her favorite part of the day is working with her colleague, Ms. Mason. Technology has been the biggest change during her time teaching, with every student now having their own computer and cell phone. She sees benefits in students having laptops, such as online assessments and lighter backpacks, but also acknowledges potential hindrances like math way and photo math. Teaching during COVID was challenging, especially for math, as building relationships and learning were different online. The building has seen minor changes over the years, such as painted hallways and new gym seats. The 100 Hall classrooms used to have carpets but were changed to tile flooring. And we are here with Miss Red, one of our math teachers here at South Aiken High School. How long have you been teaching at South Aiken High School? So this is year 23 for me, and all of those years have been here at South Aiken. Were you always in the same room? Oh, nope. I've been in three different rooms. I started in the cross hall at 220, and then I moved over to the 300 hallway for about 10 years, into room 320, and then the past several years I've been in room 228. Why did you decide to start teaching at South Aiken High School? Well, I've known for a long time, ever since I was in middle school, that I wanted to be a math teacher. And I actually went to Aiken High School and graduated from there. And when I got out of college, that was the first school I looked at, but they didn't have any openings. And South Aiken immediately offered me a job, and I felt right at home here, and have never had a reason to leave. Out of all the three classrooms that you had, which was your favorite right now? Well, I thought that my 320 big classroom that I'd spent so much time in would have been my favorite. But when they relocated a lot of us, and I got to move into a very small classroom with an office, I have found that that has really made a big difference. And I've always been next to Ms. Mason, and so I think that when we moved, we talked to administration, and we all agreed that the best plan was for us to be close together, so that we could continue to do student council and our other jobs together. And so being next to her in a classroom with an office has been spectacular. Do you remember your first day teaching here? I don't really remember my first day so much. I think there's a lot of nerves and things. I started teaching when I was 21, so very, very young and inexperienced. But I will say from that year, that's the year that 2001-9-11 occurred. So probably my big standout from the beginning of the year is knowing exactly when the Twin Towers fell. Your first year teaching here at South Aiken, do you remember the principal at that time? Yes. Actually, I had a very good relationship with Mr. Gassman. He was actually my principal when I was over at Aiken High School for my freshman and sophomore year. And then he moved over to South Aiken in my junior year of high school. So when I graduated from college, when I set up my interview for South Aiken, it was kind of nice to come in and see a familiar face. And he was here for my first and second year of teaching. He was a great principal, very supportive of the teachers. The whole student body loved him. And he has recently, in the past couple of years, passed away. But I think that he left a really good legacy in his place. What's the best part that you look forward to during the day? Oh, there's so many good things that happen during the day. I absolutely love my job. I love my students. I love what I teach. I love what we do here at the school. But I would say every day, all day, all year long, I really look forward to working with my best of friends, Rochelle Mason. What is one of the better stories that you can remember from your years of teaching? At this point, I have so many. It's really difficult to pick just one. A couple of my highlights would probably be, for example, playing in the student versus teachers basketball games. And I know that the teachers have never lost. We were talking earlier today about doing the teacher versus academic team competition that used to happen several years back. Or we used to compete with Aiken High to raise money and do spirit links and decorate the football field. So if you look year to year and year, there's so many great memories. And one of the favorite things I have is now, especially with social media, after kids graduate from high school, you're able to keep up with what those students are doing in their future. So it's nice to see how our young adults progress into having families, getting amazing careers, and things like that. Has anything changed since your first year teaching? Oh, so many things have changed. I would say the biggest change in these 23 years has probably just been technology in general. When I started, there was one computer per classroom. And now every student has their own computer. Or a couple of people would have had a cell phone, and now every student has a cell phone. It used to be that you'd catch kids passing notes where they folded it up and dropped it, and now kids are exchanging text messages from one room to another. And then just assignments and being able to do everything that we do with turning things in online and doing more creative projects has definitely changed a lot in the time that I've been here. Do you think that it's better for students to have laptops? I see a lot of benefits with it, honestly. Being able to do assessments online, which is, I think, one of the big changes nationally that we're going to. We're able to practice those with students, and they get immediate feedback. It's so much easier as a teacher for me to be able to do the work ahead of time, and then all those students are going to have all of their grades immediately. And it's kind of catching up with the rest of society, I think. And I know a lot of my students don't carry textbooks anymore because they're able to carry just the laptop, which now means that lockers are no longer being used and not needed and kind of a little bit lighter weight on the backpack. I do think there's some hindrances. We have to be very careful with our math way and photo math and artificial intelligence, writing papers and things like that. But I think that if the teachers can stay on top of those, that the students will, too. How was time during COVID? COVID with math was extremely difficult. So that first time that we got sent home, I still had AP classes, and I had Algebra I, which has an ESC. And we still had to review for everything and teach those lessons. And so for Algebra I, I tried to review for them weekly and keep up with the packets. And then with AP Calculus, we would meet daily, virtually. And my students did a great job doing that. But it's still difficult to try to learn math when you're not in the room. And as a teacher, I feel like I do a lot of relationship building. And it's just not the same when you're staring at a computer screen listening to voices. And so the next year, we were on the AB schedule, and people were missing a lot of school. And I think overall, it's put some students behind. And I think we're still trying to catch up with that, doing the best we can. But I think it's going to take several more years for us to finally get back to what we were before the COVID era. From what you can remember, is there something different in the building that was not there while you were a student? A teacher. A teacher. This is what I thought about beforehand. From what you can remember, is there something different in the building that has changed while you were a teacher? In terms of the building, I think I've been here so long that there's really nothing that's changed. Little things, like the hallways have been painted several times, and the classrooms have been painted. The lockers were painted one time. We did get new gym seats in the stands, which are really nice. That's a nice upgrade. And the soccer field also got put in, the practice soccer field. Other than that, there's really been no building changes the whole time I've been here. I have a question. Is it true that in the 100 Hall, classrooms have carpets? Yes, that is true. It used to be 100 and some of the 200 had carpets. And it was very difficult to take care of and keep clean, and it would start to smell. So the last time they went around and did flooring, my room, actually, that I'm in now, was one of the ones that got changed over to our new tile flooring. So that was a big improvement. They had to vacuum the carpet every day, which just doesn't get it clean in a school setting. Thank you so much, Ms. Red, for being here with us and taking time from your planning period. I really appreciate you guys having me. It was kind of nice to reminisce, especially over my very long career, as we discussed.