Blount County Schools Secondary Teacher of the Year - Grindl Weldon
Posted on 12/17/2018
At ten years old, a thesaurus was at the top of Grindl Weldon’s Christmas list. An avid reader, Weldon had just read a book about a group of misfits who gained strength and confidence by discovering a thesaurus and harnessing the power of language. Extremely shy and lacking in confidence, Weldon identified with the characters and realized she, too, wanted to unlock the mysteries of language. In her roles as Library Media Specialist and PreAP English 10 teacher at Locust Fork High School, Weldon shares with students her love of language and its power to inspire, comfort, transform and connect people as they share in the human experience. Weldon strives to foster, and at times, rekindle a love of reading in her students. Professing books as her love language, her superpower is the ability to match the right reader with the right book at the right time. A testament to the connections she builds through books, she still maintains strong connections with former students through shared reading experiences and book talking. Weldon believes each of her students has a unique message and a voice that deserves to be heard and strives to guide her students into becoming strong readers, writers, thinkers, and communicators. Weldon feels the writing process mirrors teaching, learning, and life and that we are all just rough drafts of the people we are becoming; the true journey to self-discovery lies in the struggle to draft, revise, and perfect ourselves while we travel upon whatever path we choose.