Local club sponsors meet-and-greet with author Sharron Marcus

Dooly County Library Manager Jill Kloberdanz and the Vienna Woman’s Club welcomed Sharron Marcus to its latest in a series of meet and greets. Sharron Marcus has written a book entitled The Joy of Teaching: A Devotional for Teachers — Preventing Burnout in the Profession That You Love.

Mrs. Marcus spoke first about her background, “I am a 30+veteran in this field of education. I retired in 2023 and I worked on the book for two years and I’m just so grateful that God allowed me to write the book.  I worked for 10 years as a science teacher at A.S. Staley Middle School and I went on to become the principal after doing my student teaching there.

“That was just a proud full-circle moment for me. Then I became a school counselor and I like to say that I was ‘tricked’ into becoming an administrator. My heart has always been for teachers. My daughter is a teacher and she’ll tell me  like, “Mama, I read the book and it was so helpful to me and told her, ‘You know to God be the Glory because I really was just the vessel that He used.’ 

“I was looking at data the other day and it said 40% of our teachers leave the profession within the first five years and 50% of teachers have thought about leaving. If all the good teachers leave and everybody’s thinking about leaving, who is going to be there to take care of our children? I would have informal conversations with teachers and realize that so many teachers are people of faith.

“They believe that there’s a God and know that He’s real, yet we’re not exercising our faith all the time. We aren’t putting it into action and not trusting God to do the miraculous. When you’re a teacher, sometimes what you’re faced with is insurmountable; I want out. We serve a miracle working God so surely He can make a difference in the lives of our children, in the school that you teach and in our profession. Teachers are frustrated with all the bureaucracy, all the programs, all the initiatives.

“Let’s be honest; due to the breakdown of the family, we’ve got a lot of our kids that don’t come to us with the type of training and support that we would like for them to have. The pay could be better and pay is important too.

“I’ve always had a heart for teachers and just wanted to write something to encourage them to put their faith into action; believe in God and that he can do anything and make a difference, that he can change things right here in this classroom. I encourage teachers to journal.  I journal myself and find it so therapeutic. Ask God to give you what you need for the child that he made. I encourage teachers to collaborate with each other, work together, get together, pray and just trust God, trust him.

“This is what this book is about; encouraging teachers to trust God, to believe him, to go to him, to know that he has all the answers and we just need to talk to him about everything including our careers.

We can all trust God more no matter what your field is. I’m grateful that people are reading it and that it’s helping people and that it’s making a difference with our teachers. We learn from them; we’ve got grandkids and children and they can teach us some things that we don’t know about. Just like we teach them, they teach us. It’s a reciprocal thing that happens in the classroom.”

In her retirement, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading and photography.

For more information, contact Sharron Marcus at MarcusNetworkLLC@gmail.com or call 229-869-3690.