11/20/09 - Madison County
This week's Tennessee Education Lottery Educator of the Week
is MarQuinta Comer, a seventh grade teacher at Northeast Middle
School in Jackson. Comer has been teaching Language Arts and
Reading to middle schoolers at Northeast for the last five years.
Comer started her journey in education a decade ago in the Memphis City School system, after graduating from the University of Memphis. She initially started down a path to become an occupational therapist, but shifted her sights to teaching. "Just kind of happened to end up teaching, and it’s something that I really enjoy doing, really love doing it," Comer said.
Her enjoyment is apparent as she prepares her students for a test. This week she is quizzing them on the translations and origins of foreign phrases such as "carpe diem" and "quid pro quo". Whether she became a teacher or an occupational therapist, Comer said her heart is in the same place. "It has definitely been challenging and rewarding and I just like the careers that offer that help, the helping professions," Comer said.
She has found that helping her students beyond their educations to be especially enriching. That desire to teach useful life skills and etiquette was inspired by a teacher Comer had while growing up. "Just a wonderful person, not only did she teach us the subject matter that we learned in our class, but she taught us character education," Comer said.
Using a mixture of tough love and focused instruction, she has lived up to her destiny as an effective educator. "It’s a great thing to have children look up to you," Comer said. "The kids are awesome, the kids are truly awesome and I love Northeast."