Mrs. Cummings: destined to be an educator
Passionate, caring, and focused. These three words can be used to describe Michelle Cummings, one of the numerous additions to the West Florence staff.
Before making her way to West, Cummings was a teacher at South Florence High School, where she was was originally known as Ms. Barr. While there, she taught world history, U.S. history, economics, and AP macroeconomics. Now at West Florence, she still teaches economics honors, along with American Government honors. She found out about the Gov. and Econ position at WF when Mr. Dowdell contacted her, knowing she had experience in this particular field.
Cummings was born and raised in Ohio. She went to college in Pennsylvania at Slippery Rock University, where she received a Bachelors of Social Studies Education in 2013. Right after graduating, Cummings came to Florence and taught at SF from 2013 to last school year. She earned her Masters of Education from Francis Marion University in 2017.
It can be said that Cummings was destined to become a teacher. It’s always been a dream of hers to become one ever since preschool.
“I used to get in trouble in daycare because I would pick up a book during nap time and start reading to the class,” said Cummings, reminiscing about her early childhood.
Many non-teachers tend to think being an educator is quite “elementary”; however Cummings says otherwise.
“Teaching is one of the hardest jobs because it’s not just you anymore; there are other opinions and attitudes in the classroom,” said Cummings.
Despite having such a strong passion in being an educator, Cummings makes it her mission to make sure she doesn’t ever mix school and her personal life. She said that being a young teacher is “all about balance.”
Cummings said she tries to grade as much as she can before leaving school premises, so that she doesn’t miss out on the fun she experiences as a 20-something year old.
Though her dream of being a teacher had already been fulfilled, Cummings has even more goals on her horizon that she hopes to achieve, one of which is “working at the supreme court.” She also said that no matter the field she enters, she wants it to deal, in one way or another, with educating.
