Part of an ongoing series featuring the teachers nominated for Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce’s Teacher of the Year honors.

In the world of education dominated by standardized testing, Denise Harris is out to instill something more important in her students than just the answers to a test.

She wants to make sure her students have real world knowledge about the topics they are covering.

“Success is understanding what we’ve gone over in your own words. For my students, I don’t judge success by you made a 100 on your test,” Harris said. “If we are talking about viruses or bacteria, for you to understand and know that there is a big difference and how they can be treated, I’d rather you know that than be able to say I made a 100. I like for them to have real world knowledge.”

Harris teaches eighth grade science at the Academy of Innovation and is her school’s nominee for the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce’s Secondary Teacher of the Year.

“I was very excited to be chosen as teacher of the year,” Harris said. “To be chosen by my peers, I was just excited, thrilled and honored.”

Harris is in her second year teaching at AOI and her fourth year overall in the Vicksburg Warren School District having spent two years at Warrenton Elementary,

She graduated from Tougaloo College with a degree in biology in 2007 and from Southern Miss with a masters in forensic science in 2012. It was while she was pursuing her masters that she made the choice to enter the education field.

“Teaching basically chose me,” she said. “I taught while I was in graduate school. I just basically fell in love with the concept of teaching and lifelong learning and allowing students to come into knowledge about stuff that I was knowledgeable about.”

AOI is a STEM-centered junior high, and Harris said she works with her students to enable them to learn through hands on activities and by forcing them to delve deeper into the concepts on their own until their fully understand them.

“I introduce things and I have them do research,” Harris said. “They research a lot. I will give them a broad topic and I will allow them to come up with a concept based on what we are talking about and let them research it and they end up teaching me something I didn’t know.”

She said she enjoys when students have those ah-ha moments and finally understand a topic they were working on in class.

“Once they know what we are doing and they have a total understanding, they can expound upon it basically take it outside the box,” Harris said. “At the Academy, we do a lot of hands on projects where they basically come up with what we are going to be doing.”

The Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce will choose one elementary and one secondary teacher of the year at the chamber luncheon Feb. 21. The winner of each award will receive $1,000 from Ameristar Casino and the runner-up for each award will receive $500 from Mutual Credit Union.

“It would be a great honor being that I am from Vicksburg, born and raised,” Harris said of her reaction if she won the award. “I went to school here, went to Hattiesburg for a while, then left there and came back to teach in Vicksburg. To be teacher of the year in Vicksburg would be a great honor.”