New Teacher Feature: Fayetteville’s Robin Wright

This is the second installment of feature stories on new teachers around Fayette County:

The teachers at Fayetteville I.S.D. hardly ever leave, so when a job opened up at the elementary school back in March, Robin Wright applied right away.

Her daughter, Amber Eilers, who teaches high school English at Fayetteville, told her about the opening.

“My daughter was begging me to come,” Wright said. “I love it. I lived in Boerne, and Boerne is not a small town anymore. It’s a suburb of San Antonio now. As much as I loved the school I taught at and loved the area I lived in, once I moved here, it was just slowing down and not having to rush.”

Teaching is Wright’s second career.

“I grew up in a military family and we traveled all over the place,” Wright said. “We landed in San Antonio, and that’s where I raised a family, went to school, and became a business manager for my husband’s architecture business. We had our children, and then he passed away. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I decided to go to school.”

At first, Wright studied to become a nurse.

“My first anatomy and physiology class told me right then that was not the path I should take,” she said. “I had to think about it and said, you know, I have a passion for children, so I should be a teacher.”

Wright said she made straight-As after switching her studies to education. She worked as a teacher in the San Antonio area for 14 years. After her second husband passed away a year and a half ago, Wright decided to make a move.

“My daughter lives here,” she said. “So I thought, I need to be closer to my family. I moved here in June, and I’ve been hired to be a second and third grade teacher. I am very happy to be here.”

Wright explained her teaching style: “I don’t teach traditionally, like me in front of a class and everybody listening,” she said. “I teach a handful of kids for about 20 minutes. Then I switch them out and teach another handful. I can meet the needs of the kids as I’m teaching instead of whole-group, where if I teach everyone at one time, some kids have got it but the children that need extra help are lost. That’s not a very effective use of time for me. Plus, children’s attention spans are short. They would much rather be doing a math game or reading a book or doing something collaboratively while I’m working with a group.”

Wright said she starts every school year with collaboration exercises and a special game that helps her to get to know each student.

“It gives them all an opportunity to work together,” she said. “It allows me to see who the quiet children are who know the answer but they’re too bashful to speak up. The ones who are natural leaders will tell you how it is, whether it’s right or wrong. They’ll lead the charge.”

Wright said her favorite subject to teach is English language arts and reading.

“Kids typically gravitate to historical fiction because they are intrigued by the Revolutionary War, the Civil Rights Movement, the 1970s and all the things that come along with history,” she said.

This year she’ll teach math, her second favorite subject, along with social studies.

“The reason I love teaching math is because when I was in elementary school and high school, it was a hard subject for me,” Wright said. “None of the teachers I had really spoke my language. When I was in college, I got a hold of a math teacher, by accident, who didn’t speak Greek. He spoke my language. I understood it. I have empathy for those kids who don’t understand. You have to find a way for them to do it their way. If it’s correct, you let them do it.

“When I was learning math, I was told there’s only one way to get to an answer,” she added. “When I went to college I found out that’s not the case. There are several ways to get to the answer. It’s what works for you. I have a lot of patience for a kid who’s struggling in math, because I was that kid.”

Wright said she looks forward to meeting her new students and settling into the community.

“The pace of Fayette County is so much more comfortable than San Antonio,” she said. “There, whenever I drove somewhere, all I would see was the back end of a tailpipe. Here I see cows. It’s much better.”