JCPS is excited to announce Kimberly Cameron-Bowden as the Certified Employee of the Month for February!
Cameron-Bowden teaches eighth-grade English 1 and English Language Arts at Benson Middle. In her second year of teaching, she loves encouraging students to reach their full academic potential. She strives to make her classroom a safe, fun, and creative place to learn.
When Cameron-Bowden is not teaching, she loves spending time with her family, crafting, and traveling.
What inspired you to pursue a career in teaching?
Helping children learn is my passion! My goal as an educator is to make a positive impact on students’ lives, build those meaningful relationships, and most importantly, be someone’s “WHY!”
What lessons has the profession taught you about education, students, and yourself?
Through this profession, I have learned that effective education demands a high degree of patience. I have also learned that to really teach students and capture their minds, I must first capture their hearts. For me, capturing a child’s heart ensures they know that I am truly invested in them as a student and as a person.
This profession has also taught me that education is crucial for our children because it fosters personal growth and critical thinking. Our students must learn how to navigate and solve real-world problems.
As an educator, building strong relationships with your students is paramount. What approaches do you use to create trust and bond with them?
The approaches I use to create trust, and bond with my students are acknowledging each, and every student by name in the mornings when greeting them. I also ensure that students feel they belong, and they are not alone. My classroom is their home away from home.
Describe a memorable teaching experience that had a lasting impact on you. What made it special, and what did you learn from it?
A memorable teaching experience that had a lasting impact on me is when a student came to me one day after class. With tears in her eyes she said, “Ms. Cameron, all my life I heard that I would never be a good writer because I couldn’t speak English very well.
However, you believed in me, you pushed me, and always encouraged me that I can be anything as long as I apply myself.” The student went on to tell me that it stuck with her.
She emails me often, and she is in the process of writing a book for the National Educators Rising Competition in June. This student went from having no direction and feeling like she didn’t belong, to making all A’s and she has joined the student government club. In October, she was also elected Freshman Vice-President.
She wants to become a teacher and shared with me that I am her “WHY” for pursuing a career as an educator!
Looking ahead in your career as an educator, what goals would you like to accomplish in the field of education?
Looking ahead in my career as an educator, I would like to become an English/Language Arts curriculum coach, school counselor, or even an assistant principal.
This year’s theme is Forward, with a focus on our North Star - Student Achievement and Academic Growth. How do you plan to carry this theme into your classroom and continue building on your award-winning strategies?
Sometimes kids will say, “I’ve never been able to or “I’ve never been good at.” However, I push my students to their full potential, and set the bar high for them.
I also remind my students that it doesn’t matter about what they learned previously, or how they performed academically in the past. We are going to focus on the now and the future. Let's work towards who you are striving to be, what career you want to pursue, and start reaching for those goals!