Sharon Campbell finds her positives in teaching
Published 3:33 pm Monday, August 3, 2020
- Photo Contributed Sharon Campbell has wanted to be a teacher since childhood and now mixes her love of chemistry and teaching into one passion.
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Since Sharon Campbell was a little girl, she always wanted to be a teacher.
“In first grade, my sisters and I would pretend we were teachers and set up our bedrooms as classrooms,” she said.
Campbell was born in Roanoke, Va., but spent most of her summers in Tazewell County. While attending college at East Tennessee State University, she met her husband and realized God had different plans for her life.
“I taught a couple of Kaplan MCAT Courses over the summers and I taught part-time chemistry for four years at University School while I was getting a graduate degree at ETSU,” commented Campbell.
“I loved it. I taught for 15 years in graduate school while also performing research in biochemistry before deciding to retire from that and teach high school.”
Campbell now combines her love of teaching and her love of chemistry by teaching chemistry at Hampton High School, which is where her husband graduated.
Additionally, she has a daughter named Elaina who is attending ETSU to obtain a Master’s Degree in chemistry.
Campbell explained that she is certified to teach any subject in elementary/middle school grades as well as biology and chemistry at the high school level.
“I would be happy with any grade, but I love high school and I love chemistry,” she said. ”I have the job of my dreams.”
Campbell’s favorite part of teaching is her students.
“I love getting to know the students, finding out what their interests are and trying to guide them to meet those goals, and most of all watching them grow up into responsible adults,” she said.
She said her biggest goal is to teach students enough math and chemistry that they can, at the least, survive a semester of chemistry and a semester of biology to obtain their future goals.
In response to teaching during COVID-19, Campbell praised her students and developed a new way to answer questions.
“I had a really great group of students, who really worked well in the virtual environment. If they didn’t understand something, many of them would email,” she said. “There are always some positives in every negative.
“I guess my positive was that I was able to start a YouTube channel to answer questions students ask about chemistry.”
Along with finding her own positives, Campbell hopes her students can do the same.
“Stay positive. Find the positives in the negative situation. They are there, you just need to look for them,” she said.
“It may not seem like a positive situation at the time, but after you weather the storm, you can look back and see it was the best thing that could have happened to teach you some valuable lesson or talent you will need in the future.”
