Overcoming the odds: Award-winning teacher found sanctuary, inspiration in education

Lovejoy High School social studies teacher Beverly Smith has spent the better part of 27 years working to make a difference in her students' lives, just like her own instructors did when they inspired her in her time of need many years ago.

So it should have come as no surprise when she was nominated for the HEB Excellence in Education Lifetime Achievement Award, a distinction with which she was bestowed May 6 at the 2012 Excellence in Education awards banquet.

"You're nominated in August, you send everything in November, and you sort of forget about it, which is pretty much what I'd done," Smith said. "When they came in and said, 'We're here to tell you you're a finalist for the Excellence in Education Lifetime Achievement Award,' I just looked around and said, 'Oh, my word.'"

Smith's journey to award-winning teacher has not been an easy one. At age 2, her parents divorced, and six years later, her mother, who was raising her four children on a waitress' salary, was committed to a mental institution.

For months, Smith's older, high-school aged brothers struggled to keep the family afloat before social services intervened and placed her and her younger brother in the custody of her father, who had since remarried and had two other children.

The stay would be short-lived: Smith's father immediately sought full custody of the children, and after securing it relinquished their care to a home for orphaned and unwanted children.

It was during this extremely difficult time, however, that Smith found sanctuary in education. She was given inspiration and hope by her teachers, who Smith said were determined to see her fulfill her potential and not slip through the cracks, despite the trying circumstances from which she emerged.

"That, to me, was very life-affirming, that what happened to me in my life didn't have to determine what I was going to do," she said. "That was important, and I hope that my life experiences and that education for me truly was salvation comes out in how I teach and the dedication I give to my students, because that's what I want."

Smith did not immediately pursue a career in education. She first majored in music at Indiana University for her freshman year. When she began helping a teacher with some struggling students, she discovered she had a knack for the trade, and went on to major in college student personnel administration in graduate school.

By the time Smith and her husband moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, she was close to finishing her teaching certification and cut her teeth at the University of Texas-Dallas. Her first full-time job saw her teaching middle school in Plano ISD, where she worked for 21 years before coming to Lovejoy, where she serves as the social studies curriculum specialist in addition to her teaching duties.

Smith also volunteers her time with organizations such as the Texas Council for the Social Studies and Texas Social Studies Supervisors Association, through which she has advocated for standards-based curriculum that she said "focuses more on skills than dates and names and places."

"I've gone down and I've testified in front of the Texas Education Agency, and I've asked them to re-think the amount of what I would consider minutia, the numbers of people they want students to be responsible for, the numbers of dates," she said. "Let's teach history on a continuum of cause and effect. If my students can relate to me that these are the reasons for the civil war and here's the effect of the civil war, then I think that's a better understanding of history and what it does in terms of your future."

In the classroom, Smith said, she sees herself as a "benevolent dictator," pushing the limits of what her students can achieve while lending a helping hand to students in need.

"Once I've got you, you're mine," she said. "Until I can see that you're making the kind of progress that you need to achieve the success that's necessary in the classroom, I'm not going to let go."

As winner of the Lifetime Acheivement award, Smith took home a $25,000 prize. In addition, Lovejoy High School received a matching donation of $25,000. Six other Lovejoy teachers were named as semi-finalists.

"It is fitting that Bev Smith was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent HEB Excellence in Education Ceremony," said Ted Moore, LISD superintendent. "Bev has the gift of being able to hold students to high levels of expectation for educational achievement and at the same time build relationships with all kids that are second to none. She is an outstanding teacher."

Smith, who said she still keeps up with several of her high school and college-level instructors, said she hopes her unique experiences growing up add to the educational experience she provides her students.

"I told myself that I wasn't going to allow my circumstances to be an excuse, and I try to live that so my students understand that life isn't about that," she said. "Life is about overcoming. It's about adapting. It's about resiliency. It's about efficacy. It's about taking your life and shaping it so that you can achieve whatever it is you want."

Current Rating: 4 of 1 votes!

Rate File: Select Rating: * ** *** ****

 Plano Apartments
 Plano Attorneys
 Plano Auto Dealers
 Plano Auto Parts
 Plano Auto Repair
 Plano Beauty Salons
 Plano Car Rental
 Plano Dentists
 Plano Doctors
 Plano Flowers
 Plano Hotels
 Plano Insurance
 Plano Loans
 Plano Mortgages
 Plano Movers
 Plano Pizza
 Plano Realtors
 Plano Restaurants
 Plano Storage
 Plano Tax Preparation
 Plano Travel
 Featured
 More...