Golden Apple Award: Warren Smith, CCS
CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – Biology is defined as the study of living organisms. It can be one of the more challenging subjects on a 9 grader’s schedule, but Warren Smith sprinkles in plenty of life lessons for his students a CCS. For teaching growing minds about growing things, we honored, Mr. Smith with tonight’s Golden Apple Award.
Jake Palumbo is the High School Principal at CCS.
He says, Mr. Smith is an excellent teacher. He’s been teaching here at CCS for the last seven years. But this is actually his third time at CCS. He’s got an overwhelming amount of experience that he brings to his classroom every single day. His work with students in biology in ninth grade is probably one of the most challenging things that a teacher can do. Teaching such an abstract subject to, young minds. And he does so just with excellence.
When asked to describe himself, “Mr. Smith says, I am someone who, really does enjoy biology. I had great biology teachers when I was in both high school and college, and, I just became very interested in the subject, and, and still am very interested in it to this day.”
Ninth grader James Harrison chips in, “He has other interests besides biology. For interim this year, he had space movies for the morning option and an afternoon option called the ‘Rockets, Rockets, Rockets.’ That interim was focused around assembling a rocket out of a kit and then launching it. I did both, and they were awesome. Mr. Smith had some “C” level engines that would make the rocket go so high. You were sure to lose it, but that was definitely worth the experience of seeing it go off endlessly until it became a tiny dot in the sky.”
Mr. Smith concludes, “I think about my high school teachers, and I saw that they enjoyed it, and that was a big deal. The fact that when they would teach it, you never got the sense that it was just kind of humdrum, that you just you knew it mattered to them, and you knew that they were excited about it. And that kind of wore off on me a little bit. And I have to say, the same is true for some of my college experiences. To see to see teachers that are, that really do like what they teach, is, is a big deal and it’s, it inspired me to want to do it myself.”
