Dr. Sharon Moore Askins: teaching the teachers

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article spotlights a local educator during American Education Week, which is observed Nov. 15-21 this year.

LAKE CITY — Dr. Sharon Moore Askins said good teachers need to be competent, caring and knowledgeable about the subject area in which they’re teaching.

She said teachers need to have a good command of effective classroom instructional strategies and effectively manage instructional time. She said the time management aspect consists of smoothly transitioning students into activities in the classroom while keeping them engaged in learning.

Askins, who lives in Lake City, is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Francis Marion University and coordinator of the university’s Teacher Cadet Program. She said good teachers use students’ assessments to guide classroom instruction.

As a faculty member in the FMU School of Education, Askins is in her sixth year teaching graduate-level courses, and her areas of specialization are curriculum, instruction and assessment.

This week is American Education Week, and Askins said the theme this year focuses on providing quality education to students from kindergarten through college. She said educators must have a “laser-light focus” to get students from kindergarten through college.

“It’s our right and responsibility to provide this for our students,” Askins said during an interview Nov. 11 at the Lake City Public Library.

Today, Askins said, educators are faced with the task of preparing students for jobs that don’t exist anymore because of the state of the economy. She said teachers need to teach students to become better thinkers and use technology effectively. Askins also said teachers need to teach students the importance of reading, writing and communicating.

In South Carolina, a large number of students come from poverty and didn’t get the early childhood education experiences that they needed, Askins said. Many of these students are not reading and have not been read to, she said.

Askins said that when these students enter school and hear Standard American English, it becomes hard for them to adapt. She said teachers have the large task of getting the students caught up to where they need to be.

Because of this, Askins said, it is essential that more family literacy programs are established and more funds are provided for early childhood education programs.

If a child can’t read by third grade, it is unlikely he or she will be successful in school, she said.

“Reading and writing is the key to success,” she said. It’s important for a student to be able to think critically and analyze, she said.

Askins said aspiring teachers and school administrators need to look at individuals around them who have been successful and find a mentor. The key is to keep learning and know that being an educator is a rewarding job, although it can become exhausting mentally, physically and spiritually, she said.

Educators have to take time to “renew their spirit” and know “you’re doing the best that you can,” she said.

Askins often reads educational journals and has discovered that teachers need to be brave enough to try new strategies in their classrooms, she said. When teachers become more experienced in the classroom, they become more confident, she said.

Askins said she served recently on a state task force that looked for ways to retain and recruit teachers. If a teacher teaches for five years, she said, it is likely the teacher will go on to retire from the profession. She said, however, that it has been found that after five years, teachers also decide to go into other professions.

Askins said programs such as the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) retain teachers. She said The Program of Alternative Certification for Educators (PACE) and the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) are alternative routes to becoming a teacher for individuals making a career change.

She said it is difficult to recruit young teachers to high-poverty communities because of the lack of social activities available. She said it is good to recruit teachers who understand the culture in those communities.

As for new teaching strategies, Askins said, research is under way in neuroscience to determine which parts of the brain are stimulated when students are learning and how this information can be used in teaching.

Askins said parents are the child’s first and most important teachers. Parents need to take their child to the library, get their child a library card and allow the child to check out books, she said.

Parents should read and talk with their children and monitor the amount of television they watch, Askins said.

“(Children) need human interaction,” she said.

Askins earned a bachelor’s in English from Francis Marion University in 1974. She earned a master’s in elementary education from FMU in 1976.

In 1992, Askins earned a Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of South Carolina. The title of her dissertation was “The Informational Needs of First Year Principals.”

“It was very strenuous, but I enjoyed the coursework,” she said of her time as a doctoral student at USC.

While a doctoral student, Askins worked full-time and helped maintain her family while driving back and forth from Columbia, she said, and many nights she wouldn’t arrive at home until 10 p.m. She said, however, that she would do it all over again.

“It opened doors for me,” Askins said of earning her Ph.D.

She said one of her high school teachers and a professor at FMU encouraged her to become a teacher.

Askins has taught English/language arts to students in second through 12th grades and was a reading specialist in Florence School District 3.

Afterward, she said, she became an assistant principal at the former Lake City Primary School. She was principal of Olanta Elementary School, which at the time housed 4K through eighth grade. For 12 years, she served as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Florence School District 3.

She also has served as a principal leader with the South Carolina State Department of Education, where she worked with low-performing schools.