If you could bottle up teaching enthusiasm and big smiles, odds are the end results would be the same as spending time with Jennifer Perkins and Glenda Allen and Leah Anderson and Beth Anderson.
Beth Anderson and her daughter Leah Anderson are both teachers, with Beth teaching at West Central Elementary and Leah teaching at Rome Middle.
Glenda Allen is a long-time educator who taught for many years for Rome City Schools and daughter Jennifer Perkins has been a teacher and administrator for the system for almost three decades.
Talk about teaching with them and the room is full of smiles, laughter, and a true love for the job and students.
Both Leah Anderson and Jennifer Perkins probably never had much of a prayer of becoming anything else when they grew up with Beth Anderson and Glenda Allen as their moms.
It’s not that their moms pushed their wants or likes on their children. Instead, their daughters saw how much teaching meant to their moms and wanted to be a part of that world from an early age.
When asking what led them to become teachers both Leah and Jennifer look over at their moms and smile.
“When I started pre-k, I already knew that I wanted to be a teacher. Even when we were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up in kindergarten and first grade, it was always a teacher,” Leah Anderson says.
“Even her first grade teacher said Leah was the one that read to the other students when they needed something read to them,” Beth Anderson says.
Growing up around her mom and her mom’s classrooms gave inspiration to Perkins.
“I remember being in elementary school at North Heights. I remember being a little girl, and it would be after school, and it would be my mom and a lot of teachers talking. I remember them all,” she says. “Just listening to them after school, talk about teaching and just being around them. I remember thinking, I want to be like them when I grow up.”
And when friends came over to the house, there was one thing they were definitely going to play.
“When I was younger, if you came to my house, you were going to play school. We always played school,” Perkins says. “I would line up my stuffed animals, my dogs. So I always said that I was going to be a teacher until I went to college.”
Much like her daughter, Glenda Allen got inspiration to become a teacher from her mom.
“My mother was always an avid reader. She would read anything, and I guess just from watching her reading everything she could get her hands on, it sort of inspired me to want to do something like that to work with people,” Allen says. “I would say my mother was the driving influence for me becoming a teacher.”
Wanting to be a teacher had always been there for Beth Anderson, but it took her a little longer to reach the destination.
“Before Leah started pre-K, I decided to go back to school. I was a late bloomer. So this is my 20th year teaching,” she says. “I've always wanted to be a teacher. When I was growing up, that's what we played. One of my best friends and I, we were both playing the teacher in our house. And we both ended up being teachers. That's funny.”
Anderson has spent her whole career at West Central Elementary. She’s teaching special education this year and has also taught second, third, fourth and fight grade along the way.
Allen started teaching at North Heights and spent 27 years at the school.
“They had just started with the resource room model. So I was the resource teacher. I had students from kindergarten all the way up through sixth grade with different ability levels. Then one day it just hit me. I thought, I need to see what my kids are doing once they leave me,” she says.
So Allen moved to Rome Middle School and got the chance to see how the children she taught were growing up.
“I should have been a middle school teacher. I enjoyed teaching little bitty kids for 27 years. But it was different with the older kids. We could carry on conversations,” she says.
Leah teaches eighth grade math at Rome Middle School.
“I'm in 8th grade math. So it’s funny because my mom loves ELA. And I don’t care for ELA. And she doesn’t care for Math. And I love math. So we're opposites that way,” Leah says.
She enjoys seeing kids her mom taught and her mom reminds students going to the middle school that Leah is there.
“I tell my students there's another Ms. Anderson, and they get so excited. They can't wait to meet her,” Anderson says.
Perkins, who had wanted to be a teacher her whole life, took a sidetrack when she started college and decided to major in business. She took an education class as an elective and in her own words, “never looked back.”
Growing up, Perkins heard from numerous people how much they loved her mom and how much her mom meant to them. And in a fortuitous turn of fate, Perkins got the chance to see her mom in action first hand at Rome Middle School.
“When I became an assistant principal at Rome Middle School, she was actually a teacher there. Getting to see her in action was amazing,” Perkins says. “She told me during the day, from eight to four, I was her boss, but at four and after, she was the boss. I actually got to see her teach. I was not her supervisor, but I was able to be a part of some of her classes.”
Those memories are super meaningful to Perkins.
“So to actually see her teach, and I tell everybody the same thing. She is the best teacher there is,” Perkins says. “There's no better teacher than Glenda Allen.”
“I was lucky to get my first job at Rome City. I stayed with them for 32 years. And I loved every minute of it,” Allen says. “I had some great principals. It's one decision I haven't regretted at all. I loved it.”
As for what they love most about teaching, the answers differ slightly, but their enthusiasm about seeing kids grow and learn is off the charts.
“I love the light bulb moment. I love just seeing the kids as they grow. The group that I have this year in special ed is the group I taught in fourth grade. This is one of my favorite groups, and I've got them again this year,” Beth Anderson says. “To see how much they grow, that's just my favorite.”
Her mom’s love for reading helped lead her to teaching and being able to help kids learn to read proved super satisfying for Allen.
“The best thing I liked about teaching is when I would get a child who could not read, and once they were taught the words, just to see how their little eyes would light up,” she says. “If they were reading and they could understand what they were reading, that to me was the most important part of my job. I loved every minute of it.”
Leah Anderson, who can be seen at practically every Rome Middle and many Rome High events supporting students and former students, enjoys being able to support her students and help mentor them and grow both academically and as people.
“Just getting to support the students, whether it's in the classroom or anywhere else. I love going to their sporting events. I feel like I'm at almost every single one of them,” she says. I like to see their growth whether it's in school, in sports, or just in themselves. A lot of students just need that one person just to listen to them and just to help them grow.”
Perkins, who is about to be on year 30 at Rome City Schools, enjoyed building relationships with students when she was in the classroom and still enjoys having those relationships. Along the way she has been a teacher, a school administrator, and now works at the Central Office.
“What I loved best about teaching when I was a classroom teacher were the relationships with the students, the other teachers, and the parents. I love that I got to teach some of the students of my friends that I went to high school with, and I got to teach some of my former teachers' kids,” Perkins says. “I taught Laura Wally, who is now my colleague. I taught Will Byington, who is a board member. Just being able to see my former students succeed at whatever level is rewarding, and being able to have relationships with them to this day is special.”
During her journey, Perkins discovered one of her favorite things was being able to work with at-risk students.
“I was at Rome Transitional Academy for 14 years. And within that time span, I opened up the Phoenix Performance Learning Center, which was a non-traditional high school. I found my passion at RTA. At-risk students were my passion,” she says.
After that, Perkins decided it was time for a change and moved to the Central Office.
One thing is certain, both mothers are insanely proud of their daughters.
Ask Beth Anderson about how proud she is of Leah, and she takes a deep breath before breaking into a big smile.
“I am one proud mother. Somebody at school told me I should be very proud of Leah, because of what all she's done. She's a great teacher and a great mentor to students,” Beth Anderson says. “She’s a great supporter of these students. There are a lot of students that can sometimes be tougher to deal with. Those students tend to be my favorites, and they tend to be her favorites too.”
When hearing her mom’s comment, Leah smiles too and makes sure her mom knows that she helped inspire her.
"It's just cool knowing that growing up I got to watch her do what she was doing and now I'm in that spot. Honestly, a bunch of people say I'm just like her, too when it comes to teaching. I probably yell more than she does. But I teach in middle school,” Leah Anderson says.
When asked how proud she is of her daughter, Allen’s eyes light up and a big smile covers her face.
“Jennifer has always been a good kid. The things that she is accomplishing and the things that she's gonna do is that moment when as a parent you just have to sit back and say, ‘that's my baby.’ I always think about her grandmother, because her grandmother played a real important part in her life and she would just be so proud of Jennifer,” Allen says. “Jennifer's that go get it kind of person. When you give her a challenge, she's gonna overcome that challenge. I have seen how when something affects her in a negative way, she'll find some way to turn it around so that it's gonna be all for her good. You can't keep her down. She's been like this ever since she was a little girl. And this is just one proud mama right here.”
Perkins takes the compliment in stride and says she hopes to emulate her mom in several ways and mentions that she hopes she has inspired her daughter Jordan, who is majoring in education at West Georgia, too.
“She set the bar high. She truly is my inspiration. She is my role model,” Perkins says. “My goal is to influence my daughter, Jordan. If I can hang around for a couple of more years, how cool would that be for me to be able to have the experience that my mom had? I want to see my daughter in a classroom working."