Over his thirty year teaching career Jason White, the Head of the Lightridge English Department, has had some terrible classes. One particular group of troublemakers stands out.
“ The people in that class were disruptive and wild,” said White. “But I was a veteran at that point. I knew how to handle it, so it was never a problem, but when I look back on it, that class was bad.”
One of the students in this terrible class was Miles Lipscomb, who is now an English teacher in the department White runs.
“We were a loud and rowdy crew, definitely gave him a lot of stress and made him a little more bald than he already was,” Lipscomb explained.
Lipscomb isn’t the only former student of White’s who now works at Lightridge. Biology teacher Michelle Moses is a former student, as is English teacher Brittany DelSignore. DelSignore has been working with White for more than six years, and while they now work alongside each other, she still sees him as a role model.
“ I love it,” said DelSignore. “I think it’s very cool to have learned to be a teacher from a teacher that I really respected and admired.”
White grew up in Richmond, Virginia and while he is now, as DelSignore said, a very respected teacher, education wasn’t always a priority. In high school, he was a troublemaker and was in and out of the principal’s office. White’s mother was also an educator so teaching wasn’t something completely new for him, but it wasn’t a career he was interested in. White dreamed of becoming a writer and attending graduate school, however, when he ended up not immediately continuing his education, the previously unthinkable became an option.
“Once I started teaching I think it was the right call,” he said. White found purpose in the world of teaching and describes the experience as “incredibly rewarding.”
“I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” he said.
What he most enjoys about teaching is the impact he has on students and the positive reinforcement that he gets from students and teachers.
“I love it,” said White. “I mean it’s very rewarding to see that they have chosen the same path that I did.”
His former students agree with this sentiment.
The first couple of weeks I was working at Lightridge I kept saying “Mr. White, Mr. White, Mr. White” and it took me a long time to just say “Jason.”
— Miles Lipscomb
White said his favorite teaching experience so far has been working at Lightridge because of the staff and students. White expressed that while teaching doesn’t pay as much as other careers, the experience of teaching is unforgettable.
“There are moments where you get to realize how much of an impact you’ve had on a kid and it’s incredibly rewarding,” said White. “My wife works at the Environmental Protection Agency, she has for more than 30 years, she started working a couple years before I did. She says all the time that while she gets paid a lot more than I do, my job is constantly rewarding. There’s this constant positive feedback where you kind of see the impact you’re having on people and you get positive reinforcement from students, that’s really what I think it is. It’s like there are these moments where you hear about a former student who becomes an English teacher, and it’s kind of amazing seeing that people saw what you were doing and said ‘You know I want to do that with my life also.’ It means to me that they thought what I was doing was important.”
