2023 saw Franklin Community High School become a little livelier than usual as the English Department’s Mr. Eric Jenkins made a run to 2024 Indiana Teacher of the Year.
I recently sat down with Mr. Jenkins for the first time since being in his class to find out how his unique formative experience influenced him to become the teacher he is today.
Accidentally on Purpose
“The summer before I was supposed to graduate from college, I was dead set on going to teach on the south side of Chicago,” Jenkins recalls. He planned to return to the city where he had previously done a fellowship and begin teaching while rooming with a friend. “Everything was all laid out, and that’s what I was going to do.”
A month before he graduated from IU, the plans completely fell through, and for the following summer, he was working at a restaurant, at the precipice of a coin flip. Jenkins recounts that he “could either find somewhere near Bloomington to teach or I can go back to Alabama, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The choice would be practically made for him. “A friend from Minnesota… called me…out of the blue and said, ‘Hey, once I graduate, I’m going to go teach in Nigeria because I know this principal of an American school there. Do you want to go because we’re looking for more American teachers?’ …I said yes.” So, within Mr. Jenkins’ first year of teaching, he found himself some six thousand miles around the globe because “I didn’t know what I was going to do, and I was down for an adventure.”
From Indiana to Nigeria
The uncertainty would not end, however, as when the actual teaching began, structure was not on the docket.
“I had nobody to say, ‘this is how you’re supposed to do it.’ So I just did it and was able to be flexible and kind of see what sticks.”
This approach evolved into what Jenkins cites as a foundation in his teaching. “You gotta figure out who the people are in the room. That was so important in Nigeria, because they were from everywhere.”
Intentional or not, the activities played a role in this process. He “Had them design their own superheroes, and then we wrote stories based on those heroes and stuff, and it was really interesting to see all the different cultural variations in heroes.”
Even further, he developed the very personal approach he has since employed in the classroom. “It was through lots of conversations with students and their families. That was something too that was unique about the situation, the families were really invested in their kids’ education.”
What It All Really Means
Thus began a balancing act of every factor imaginable. “What are their expectations? Building a relationship between them and the people at home, and figure out what they’re interested in learning… and then how can I kind of bring those 2 together as like, what are we supposed to do? What do you guys want to do?”
That was the bottom line. “They were looking for the teachers from America to kind of bring to the table… the standards and curriculum from America. And implement it.”
Education is an exchange. Mr. Jenkins could have delivered on his end by sharing Indiana’s curriculum by the book. But what good would that do for kids from all over the world? The skills required to thrive as a teacher are reliant on the students thriving as well. A teacher can only give if the student gives too, and the way he accomplished that was to see the world they came from.
“The world is a lot bigger than one town… the most important thing is preparing them to be people, right? Like to be a whole person, that’s more important than any of this sort of like grade level content stuff that might be there.”
“ Get out, see the world.“
