Perry High teacher strives to have positive impact on students

Perry High School Teacher of the Year Susan Bray says her students push her to be better.

In a profession that she says gives her purpose, this is Bray’s 23rd year teaching overall. She has been teaching at Perry High School for seven years and prior to that, she taught at Mary Persons High School in Monroe County. She teaches 11th grade American Literature and AP English Language and Composition.

Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, but had lived in Macon for many years since the age of 7, Bray graduated from Southeast High School. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and secondary education from Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, as well as her master’s degree. She’s currently working on an education specialist degree in teacher leadership from Kennesaw State University.

To be selected as Teacher of the Year for Perry High School, Bray said it’s tremendously flattering and an honor.

“We have a wonderful faculty that is very strong academically. I have a lot of respect for them,” she said, noting her 16-year-old son, Noah Meacham, is currently a junior at Perry High, who is also one of her students. “A lot of these people are very special to me, not just as a colleague, but as a parent.”

As a resident of Bonaire, Bray said the best testament she can give to Perry High is that she wanted her son to attend school there.

“I trust [them] with my child and his education,” she said. “I think that’s the greatest compliment.”

She said it’s humbling to be chosen as Teacher of the Year, but “there are so many great, wonderful people here.”

She added, “To choose one sometimes is a little absurd because we have such hardworking, diligent, loving people who spend their days and nights doing what is right for kids. We have 100 people here every day who are Teacher of the Year in my mind.”

Bray also commended teachers throughout the county for the hard work that they do and also the administration at Perry High.

“We’ve had comfortable, hardworking people who make our lives easier,” she said. “Again, I trust them. I trust that they have my best interest and the kids’ best interest at heart.”

“I have great respect for all of them, and I’m very lucky to be at Perry High School,” she added. “It’s just a warm, comforting, non-adversarial type of relationship that we have with our administrators.”

Why teaching?

“I had an excellent teacher in high school. I think as a young person that was where it began. I had a high school drama teacher, John Jones, now the president of Macon Little Theatre, who was kind of a role model for me. I began to see the impact that one teacher could have on a student and I realized that I wanted to have that kind of impact. As I got into college, I feel like that rationale matured and it became less about a teenage adoration of one person and more about my own awareness of all the things that I saw wrong with the world around me and how most of them could really be repaired by investing in our kids — crime, poverty, even illnesses and diseases to a certain extent by educating the kids around us about choices that they can make to better themselves and better the quality of their lives. That was kind of the maturing that came during my freshman/sophomore year of college. As I matured, my conviction to do this job matured. And then, once you’ve been in the job for a while, you realize that it’s hard. Why do I stay here? I would be lying to say that there are days when my devotion is not tested. However, I feel like it gives me purpose. That’s something that we all try to find in our lives. That’s a huge goal for a lot of people. This is what I do; I get it and I understand it. Some days are hard and some days I question myself and I question the profession, but in the end, I always retain that sense of purpose. And the kids are funny, fun and smart. The interaction of the kids — I don’t see me being able to give that up to do something else. That’s where the joy is. They push me to be better.”

What brought you into the field?

“I realized the impact of that excellent teacher and wanted to have a career that was about more than money. I wanted to find something that was noble. We don’t sell that idea to our young people enough. There are plenty of them that have that in them, but I really couldn’t have probably taken a job where it was just about the money. If I didn’t feel morally or ethically connected to what I was doing, I think I would have a very difficult time with that. This had a nobility that I’ve always respected.”

Any inspiration from past teachers?

“My drama teacher from high school, John T. Jones, and a host of other people along the way. I was a drama nerd in high school.”

Best part of teaching?

“The wonderful kids that I interact with, but I also have this wonderful group of colleagues that are like me. I’m so fortunate in the English department to have just the best, most supportive department that I could conceivably imagine — funny, interesting, intelligent people that I get to work with in a loving, supportive atmosphere. There’s real love in the department. I feel like I can go to [them] with a problem and they would be there. Also, I like talking about books. It’s something I believe in. We need to be a society who reads more. We need to be a society who feeds ourselves through evaluating and considering the ideas of others and one person’s perspective verses others. Because I believe in it, I don’t mind pushing that belief onto the kids that you need to be people who read and evaluate for yourselves the world around you and to try to make them more thoughtful, rational, open-minded citizens, which is important.”

What is it about teaching that you like the most?

“I think it’s shifted over time. I used to like the performance aspect of it, getting up in front of a crowd and talking. As time has moved on, that has become less of my focus and much more on watching the growth of the kids and how something you say can affect the way they perform or that it stays with them and the relationships that I have with students from the past that have become adults and a few who are teachers themselves. You get to feel like you had a little piece of that. As I see them growing into parents and contributors to our society, I love seeing them get older and doing well. That’s what it’s about — making them contributing members of society.”

Most challenging part of teaching?

“The paperwork, especially as a writing teacher. Any English teacher will tell you that. It’s difficult to navigate. Not that it’s not enjoyable to read the kids’ writing, it’s just the volume of paper.”

Anything that makes your job difficult?

“I think that with the current focus on standardized testing, the tests are valid but there is a push toward assessing students in that framework that can feel as though we’re spending a lot of time talking about tests, more than I enjoy. That makes it difficult. Class sizes have grown over the past few years. In Georgia overall, we have probably bigger classes than we ever had before, so that makes giving kids the individual attention that they need sometimes difficult.”

If not teaching, what?

“I make the joke lately that I could have gone to law school because of all the time that I’ve invested in education. But, I probably would be a public defender or something where I felt like I was defending people who didn’t have the ability to provide an attorney for themselves. I think when you develop overtime a servant mentality and you’re in a service job, it’s very difficult to shake that idea of that’s the kind of purpose you need to have for your life.”

Advice to students:

“They need to read more, even if they’re on their phones. They need to be reading more about what’s happening in the world around them. With my students, I try to convince them to download some news apps, look at credible sources and look at things from a lot of different perspectives. I try most days to give them five minutes or so to read and I try to make a point to take them to the library and let them wonder a bit. The kids have got to spend some time really investing in pouring ideas into themselves so that they can be well-informed citizens, which we desperately need.”

Advice to parents:

“Take your kids to the bookstore and the library. Buy them books for Christmas and let them go wonder in a Books-A-Million or Barnes & Noble. My experience is that when you do that, your kids will read, and when you don’t, they probably won’t.”

Home life:

“My husband is Grant Bray, who teaches World History and AP World History at Howard High School in Macon. My son, Noah Meacham, is an honor student at Perry High School and is in the band. I have two stepchildren, Sarah Bray, 15, and Ryan Bray, 11, who go to school in Macon. My mother is Leslie Gonzalez, 72, who lives with us, and we have a dog, Sam. We attend Harvest Church in Byron.”

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