GREENSBORO, NC (WGHP) — Teaching is Tammy White’s dream job.
For almost three decades the band teacher at Kiser Middle School in Greensboro has opened the eyes of her students to their musical abilities. Her long career almost didn’t happen; she almost quit midway through her first year of teaching.
“I remember December of my first year of teaching, I called my bassoon professor and I said I’m not going back,” says White. “I said I can’t do it and I just felt like a failure, and I didn’t want to be a failure to my students and he talked me into it. He said, ‘hey, you have to go back and finish the year.’ And I went back in January, and it was like someone had sprinkled fairy dust because I was able to turn it on. I saw the big picture of the students who didn’t see me as a failure. It was really myself.”
Now she uses her own experience as a teachable moment when she sees her students struggling.
“I am a big believer in the power of being positive. There are ways that you can coin things where it doesn’t have a negative impact on the psyche, but it’s part of letting students know that I believe in them, and I believe you can do this and we might not be where we want to be at right now, but that we’re going to get there eventually together.”