Soldier turned teacher is making a difference at Eddy Middle School
“I already know you can” — what a remarkable statement to make to a group of eighth-graders.
Imagine if every single classroom across this country had such a voice of empowerment speaking over our children.
Life would be much different, don’t you think?
I can’t speak for classrooms across the land, but I have learned of such a proclaimer right here in Columbus. A six-year Army vet who totes her experiences behind her lectern, Delincia Hart aims to replace excuses with solutions in her seventh and eighth-grade English classes at Eddy Middle School.
One of the most essential tools a teacher in a Title One school can utilize is her ability to recognize and counteract the factors outside of her control, outside of her classroom that affect her students’ learning. Her years as a soldier surely cultivated her skill to see the opponent, create a battle plan, and then forge into the fight with the necessary tactics to overcome. The benefactors become her pupils.
Her prowess in the classroom is rooted in her contagious growth mindset and her unfaltering dedication to establishing high expectations with the scaffolding required to allow her students to obtain lofty goals. According to her own purpose-driven life, Hart decided not to become another road block in her students’ paths. On the contrary, she approaches her classroom with the same dedication as she did her service alongside her military comrades, with motivation, guidance and support.
Hart sets her sight on one objective — recognize the opponents preventing her students from being successful and then setting her sights on destroying those obstacles. She aims to obliterate those roadblocks and reduce them to rubble so that her students can rise above the ashes to one day walk back into her classroom years later with diploma in hand. And she does so by taking the time to learn about her students, a key in any successful classroom teacher’s arsenal.
A few years into her career, Hart dedicated a few precious moments to a small awards ceremony to highlight the victories of her students. She gave an award to a young man whose response shook Hart to her core. He declined the token, saying he had no place to put it at home. Our stouthearted teacher offered a solution. “Why not take it home to your mother?” to which the young lad responded, “She wouldn’t want this.”
That was his normal. His acceleration in academics was certainly not his mother’s priority, certainly not even the smallest of her concerns. Her apathy toward her son’s studies demonstrates one of the strongest embattled enemies in this trench warfare called public education. So what is a valiant soldier turned teacher to do?
Simple. Be steadfast.
Steadfast in expectation. Strong in training. Determined in vision.
Hart would choose the challenged student any day because she knows wholeheartedly she is making a difference. She presents a challenging classroom, works hard to train her students to learn, and then introduces them to the dream of success beyond the many obstacles of life outside her classroom. Then, she waits. She waits patiently for their achievements to link up with her expectations. And they do. They certainly do.
This story was originally published December 27, 2016 at 1:26 PM with the headline "Soldier turned teacher is making a difference at Eddy Middle School."