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Cullowhee’s Jack Collins is named county’s top teacher
By Lynn Hotaling
A Cullowhee educator who returned to the classroom after 18 years in business is Jackson County’s Teacher of the Year.
Jack Collins, who taught shop in Cherokee from 1974-78 and joined Cullowhee Valley’s faculty 10 years ago, was chosen for the honor from among six finalists.
“We’re not going to have two or three weeks for each chapter – we’re going to have one week,” Jackson County Teacher of the Year Jack Collins told a group of students on the first day of school last week as he explained how much ground they had to cover before mandatory state and federal tests. Collins, who’s in his 10th year as vocational teacher at Cullowhee Valley, was named the county’s top teacher during an Aug. 18 banquet. He was chosen by a committee of educators and community leaders based on a written portfolio, speech and interview. “I’m shocked,” Collins said when asked how he felt about being tapped for the honor. With Collins are, from left, CVS eighth-graders Colton McGill, Wesley Haskett, Brett Baucom, Ashley Obregon and Christopher Bates. – Herald photo by Nick Breedlove
“I was shocked,” Collins said of the Aug. 18 announcement. “There are so many good teachers in this county.”
Collins describes himself as the “luckiest man in the world,” and said he waited almost 20 years for his current job.
“(Former Cullowhee Valley vocational teacher) Jack Galloway was the best shop teacher in the state,” Collins said. “I started thinking about this job when I found out Jack was retiring.”
In between his stint at Cherokee and his return to teaching at CVS, Collins was a national sales manager for a company that did school fund-raisers, a line of work that kept him in schools across the country.
“I learned a lot going in to so many classrooms in so many different schools,” he said.
While Collins said he doesn’t think students have changed much through the years, he can’t say the same about the vocational curriculum.
When asked if he missed the wood-working projects that were a mainstay of junior high shop classes two decades ago, Collins acknowledged that he does.
“I’m a dinosaur,” he said. “I’m a product of the industrial education system.”
Though his students typically score well on current state and federal tests, Collins said schools may be “missing the boat” with the current computer-based middle school curriculum.
“No Child Left Behind says every child needs to be prepared for college, but not every child is going to college,” he said. “We did things 25 years ago that involved planning and then constructing a project. And when the kids were finished, they had a project they could take home.
“They say they want kids to think – I think the older vocational programs helped teach kids to think. I also think it was a plus that the kids who might not have been the academic achievers were often the ones who were looked up to in woodworking class. We’re no longer giving our academic low-achievers a chance to excel.”
Collins said he went into education for one reason.
“I wanted to help the kids who hated school as much as I did,” he said.
The veteran educator said he seems to have a knack for teaching, but it was a skill he didn’t know he had until he went into the Army. During two tours in Vietnam, he became an instructor on communications security and discovered he had an aptitude for it, he said.
“I used my southern drawl and Baptist-preacher approach to my advantage,” Collins said.
After being shipped straight from the jungles of Vietnam (where he earned a Bronze Star and combat medals) to Alaska’s frozen tundra, Collins began taking remedial classes at night. After he left the Army, he enrolled at Western Carolina University, graduating in 1974.
“I’m excited about this year,” Collins said. “We’ve got new leadership at our school – someone from this community who understands the local culture and can get the community involved.”
Community involvement is something Collins, a former Boy Scout leader, knows something about. He and his wife, Diane, have lived in Cullowhee for almost 30 years, and all three of their sons attended either Cullowhee Valley or its predecessor, Camp Laboratory School, before moving on to Smoky Mountain High.
As to a teaching philosophy, Collins says his is on the wooden sign that adorns his classroom wall in the hopes his students will carry it with them:
“Doing what you like is freedom; liking what you do is happiness.”
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