{"id":16630,"date":"2021-05-06T14:54:53","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T18:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/1780\/?p=16630"},"modified":"2021-05-20T09:37:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T13:37:50","slug":"transylvania-alumna-blossoms-into-award-winning-educator-inspiring-next-generation-of-pioneers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/1780\/2021\/05\/transylvania-alumna-blossoms-into-award-winning-educator-inspiring-next-generation-of-pioneers\/","title":{"rendered":"Transylvania alumna blossoms into award-winning educator, inspiring next generation of Pioneers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sophie Schwab \u201911 likes to tell her students that biology is her first love. Convincing them of its relevance in every facet of their lives is, perhaps, her second. Within the first several years of teaching, she has received two student-nominated awards, one from Barnes & Noble, the other from Fayette County Public Schools.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the teacher in high school that everyone wants to be friends with, ask advice of, or just hang out in her classroom,\u201d says Emma Lloyd \u201921, a former student of Schwab\u2019s<\/a> at Lafayette High School in Lexington, now a senior at Transy. \u201cHer classroom is so inviting and welcoming,\u201d Lloyd adds, recalling how she would sit in that environment, planning to emulate Schwab in her own classroom when she became a teacher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lloyd, a member of Transy\u2019s swim team, is just finishing her student teaching as an elementary education major and psychology minor. She\u2019s about to graduate and join Schwab in the ranks of her profession and as a Transy alumna. It\u2019s another full circle for Schwab, who has encouraged several former students to attend her alma mater. She\u2019s even taught the children and grandchildren of professors who once taught her, including Harrison Lane \u201920, the grandson of Don Lane, her professor for Lifetime Fitness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Schwab, who loves science, math and especially biology, very nearly didn\u2019t become a teacher. Because of her academic bent, she\u2019d been guided as a sophomore in high school to consider pre-health and a future as a physician. She dutifully adopted that path. \u201cI put the expectation of med school on myself,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When her high school math teacher in Ironton, Ohio, recommended Transylvania over larger state schools as a more compatible option for someone graduating from a class of 11 people, Schwab visited campus and was smitten. On the day she committed, her mother bought her some Transy swag, including a sweatshirt, which she proudly wore and would eventually bequeath to Lloyd, when she, too, committed to Transylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"emma
Lloyd is wearing the sweatshirt that Schwab received from her mother when she committed to Transy.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I told her I was looking at Transy,\u201d says Lloyd, \u201cshe was all in.\u201d Schwab shared her memories and was encouraging throughout her college search. Transy was Lloyd\u2019s top choice as a swimmer, but also \u201cas a teacher and a person,\u201d Lloyd explains. \u201cI wanted to have that same experience in college that she had so that I could be more like her when I grew up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whereas Lloyd entered Transy having known, since fifth grade, that she was destined to become a teacher, Schwab advanced through Transy\u2019s pre-health path until her junior year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI loved everything about the biology classes at Transy,\u201d Schwab remembers, \u201cand I tried to take as many of them as I could.\u201d However, as she realized her lack of enthusiasm for becoming a doctor, she began to feel uneasy about the path she\u2019d fallen into. \u201cMy heart simply wasn\u2019t in it,\u201d she says. Deeply upset and uncertain about what to do, she talked with her adviser, biology professor Belinda Sly, who reassured her and suggested she take a year after her graduation to figure out what was right for her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liberated to consider other options, Schwab stepped back and realized in her senior year that her true calling was to be an educator. She laughs now when she describes the clues she\u2019d missed along the way, including how so many of her friends were taking education classes at Transy \u2014 classes she\u2019s sorry she missed \u2014 and that she came from a family of teachers and principals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifting her sight line to education, Schwab quickly learned the enormous value of having a bachelor\u2019s degree renowned for its rigor. She was steeped in the subject matter she would teach. After earning a master\u2019s in education at Morehead State University, Schwab was immediately hired to teach at Lafayette High School, the home of SCAPA (School for the Creative and Performing Arts) and pre-engineering students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She notes how having studied biology in the context of the liberal arts further prepared her to teach and relate to students with such diverse interests. Taking fine arts and humanities classes also gave her science brain a respite and opened her to so much more of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible experience,\u201d she likes to tell her students, \u201cto have so many different experiences \u2014 art history, fine arts in May term, seeing so many different sides of all these different disciplines.\u201d But biology is what continues to ignite her interest and motivate her to share what she\u2019s constantly learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love biology so much,\u201d she says. \u201cI love learning about the content; I love talking about it. I get very excited.\u201d Her hope, she tells her students, is that by the end of the year, they\u2019ll at least appreciate biology \u2014 \u201cbecause it\u2019s so applicable and relevant; it\u2019s everything about your body, everything happening around you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schwab insists that being an effective teacher means being interested in the content and the students. It\u2019s the memory of teachers who were excited to be in class, talking enthusiastically about the subject, that always stuck with her. \u201cI knew they wanted to be there,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you have an excited adult in the room that makes all the difference.\u201d She shares those memories with her students, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt Transy you get to know your teachers so well,\u201d she adds, noting how hard she\u2019s worked to build those same kinds of relationships with her students at Lafayette. \u201cI always tell them about Transy \u2014 the small classes and getting to know your classmates and professors. It\u2019s such a different world. That personalization has stayed with me all of these years.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So too have the flexibility and self-discipline she learned at Transy. She says she\u2019s relied on that ability to adapt and adjust to meet the challenges of teaching biology and anatomy online during the coronavirus pandemic. Trying to take a lab-based class and move it to an online platform, she says, \u201cI have never in my life been so at a loss or so challenged to make it engaging and relatable.\u201d But she did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schwab incorporated the study of the coronavirus into her teaching of the immune system. It was something her students found immediately relevant. The virtual labs that she and her colleagues created and the many online and digital resources proved to be very useful. She sees the fact that every student now has a computer to be a game changer. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting and a little overwhelming at times,\u201d she says, \u201cbut the possibilities are endless now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Schwab (center) with her Lafayette class of graduating seniors in 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among her biggest concerns throughout COVID-19 was that her students should not miss out on projects and labs they needed to be prepared for college. Even before the pandemic, she was eager to help her students reach their highest level, drawing on her Transy experience \u2014 and even the expectations of her professors \u2014 to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe rigor at Transy is unbelievable,\u201d she says. \u201cI carry that with me. It prepared me for my master\u2019s degree, but also as a teacher. I think about that rigor level and about what is to come for a lot of these students, if they go into pre-med or whatever it might be. I try to prepare them for that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Kirk Abraham, her former professor of health and exercise science, walked into her classroom for an open house, she remembers feeling a little nervous when he picked up a copy of her anatomy curriculum. But she learned from his daughter that when they studied together he would say, \u201cOh, you\u2019re learning that?\u201d Schwab hopes he\u2019s pleased with what she\u2019s doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her students are. She\u2019s been moved by the awards they\u2019ve nominated her to receive (even requiring an essay to be written). \u201cSometimes you wonder if you\u2019re impacting these kids,\u201d she ponders: \u201cAm I doing enough? Do they want to be here?\u201d And then the awards come and validate her impact. \u201cIt\u2019s the best feeling, the most rewarding thing ever and very humbling.\u201d It lifts an already buoyant teacher as she continues on her daily mission to nurture and inspire the next young mind.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to be a teacher that my students look back at and say, \u2018Ms. Schwab really prepared me for what was to come.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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