|
|
|
Teacher shapes lives by loving students
Question: What happens when bullets get married? Answer: They
have little BB's. Okay so it wouldn't win the Pulitzer Prize for
humor, but over the years the joke teller has won the hearts and
influenced the minds of thousands of area students.
Jacqueline Singleton had no idea why I was calling and asking
her for an interview. Especially when I mentioned it was for the
new feature on role models. I too was a little curious. I was hoping,
no offense to Mrs. Singleton, to get an interview with Gandhi or
Mother Teresa. These are role models, right? Well, neither has returned
my call, so I had to go to my secondary list, which is when I called
Singleton.
Through the conversation I reevaluated what a role model was exactly.
Are role models the super famous, super rich, super duper people,
in whose presence I would quiver and sweat and dream that someday
they could knock me over, or that I could get hit by their limo?
I hope not.
I prefer a role model to be someone I know, someone who has taught
me, cared for me, and has patiently led me through the problems
of life.
Someone who has corrected me when I was in error and was always
there for me when I got detention. I'm speaking of my high school
math teacher of course.
Singleton has been teaching math and statistics for over 30 years.
She taught at Bayside High School for the first 18 years, and has
been at Tallwood High School for over 10 years. Singleton and Warren,
her husband who is a minister at The Road to Emmaus church in Virginia
Beach, have a daughter Aminah and a son Asa.
Besides her involvement at Emmaus and providing premarital counseling
alongside her husband, Singleton's greatest outreach is to her students.
The concern for students and wanting to impact their lives is what
drew Singleton to teaching.
She has shown her love for her students from the simple jokes
that she tells (the jokes in this article being two of her shorter
ones) and by the Christian witness her students see and respect.
She is also bold about her faith, sharing openly with students when
appropriate and praying with students who request it.
Over the years she has planted many seeds and has not yet seen
the sort of fruit she would have liked. And yet "I knew that
I was to continue to plant seeds," Singleton pointed out. "Eventually"
seeds do bare fruit. One student told her that she became a teacher
because of Singleton's class.
Asked how she has continued to teach with vigor and concern after
30 years, she responded that in order to make it as a teacher, "you
really have to love the students." Over the years it has become
harder being a teacher, she told me. There is more pressure in regards
to SOL's (standards of learning), and keeping students interested
and stimulated when you have to compete against computers, movies,
and music.
The most amazing thing to me about Singleton is how unassuming
she was during the interview, which is the example of a real servant:
humble, meek, and unpretentious. By the end of the interview, she
was still perplexed as to why I was interviewing her.
"I really don't see that what I do is any different from
any other teacher," she said. "This spotlight, if anything,
would just be one person representing the hundreds and thousands
of teachers who do the same thing that I do. I really don't think
that I do anything exceptional ... it's just a part of the job."
In a way, I guess she's right. The only problem is how am I going
to interview them all. But if they have the heart, humor and faithfulness
of Jaqueline Singleton, then it will just have to be done.
Question: Of Mr. Bigger, Mrs. Bigger and baby Bigger, which is
bigger?
Answer: Baby Bigger, because he's just a little bigger.
|
|
|
