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

It was her passion for literature that led Amanda Tolbert into education.

Tolbert, the Porter’s Chapel Academy nominee for the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce’s Secondary Teacher of the Year, is an English teacher at PCA.

“I was good at nothing but English, and it is the only thing you can make money doing,” Tolbert said. “That is what got me into it and surprisingly, I like teenagers, which was really lucky.”

Her love of the subject has enabled her to connect with students and help them to understand texts such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “A Tale of Two Cities.”

“I like my material,” Tolbert said.  “I really like teaching English itself. I like getting to know the students. I like getting to a student who thinks they are awful at literature and grammar and getting them to get their first B on an English test. That is fun.”

She incorporates games into the classroom to help her students to think critically and delve deeper into the text. She also works to make classic texts relevant to current events.

“When we read ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ I have students research how our government compares to pre-revolutionary France,” Tolbert said. “They are always shocked to learn some of the statistics relating to the U.S. prison system, our tax system and the number of people in the students’ home towns who are food insecure.”

Tolbert said in her classroom she defines success as, “doing better today than they did yesterday. Just doing better every day.” Working with teenagers, she said she enjoys seeing them grow and mature as the year progresses.

“It is awesome,” she said. “You get so proud of them and yourself because it is like yeah, I finally did something. It is meaningful. I know that they may not remember my name in 20 years, but hopefully there is something that I have done that has impacted them positively. That I have given them some sort of self-confidence or some way to go about life.”

Tolbert graduated from Delta State University in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science in English education. She started her career at Terry High School and has taught at Porter’s Chapel, where she teaches English I and II and is the year book sponsor, since 2015.

“I got so excited,” Tolbert said of being named secondary teacher of the year at PCA.  “It felt awesome. It was fantastic to have other teachers think that what I’m doing is good enough.”

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.

“I would cry,” Tolbert said of winning the chamber award. “I would be so excited by that. It would be such an honor.”