Molly Longman has been nominated for the March Teacher of the Month. She had four nominations and most of them came from students who are in the cast or crew for the spring play. The students mentioned that she motivates them to work really hard and puts a lot of extra time to beyond the school day to make sure that the production goes well. Longman said,”The fourth [nomination] came from one of my English I students, one of the freshmen that I have for Language Arts this year just for being positive in the classroom.”

Starting her teaching career in 2007, she has now been teaching for 12 years at ADM. She became a teacher because she had a few teachers who were really good mentors and really inspired her growing up. Longman saw that they were really passionate about what they did and made a positive impact on her. She said, “I thought that was something that I would like to have the opportunity to do. I like the fact that I get to work with young people all the time. I like the variety of every day is a little bit different.” 

Longman was good at math and was thinking about teaching Spanish but picked English because, in the end, she really likes the process of teaching literature because it is so open to interpretation and she likes the idea of opening up. “There doesn’t always have to be only one right answer. You can teach people to open up and think for themselves and draw their own conclusions, even if we all are looking at the same thing to begin with. So, I like the creative aspect of it. That’s why I ended up picking English,” said Longman.

She believes she was nominated as a good reminder that the time she put in does matter. She tries to be very positive at school and it’s good to see that people see her being a positive influence. Longman said, “They see me smiling going to work every day and it’s a nice recognition that makes all the energy you put in worth it.”