Damon McKinney- Enid High School Teacher
Helping students find out who they want to be motivates Damon McKinney to teach. His motivation is about more thanhelping choose a career path. Mr. McKinney wants his students to discover how they can make a difference in the world for others.
As a teacher at Enid High School, Mr. McKinney is dedicated to nurturing youth. This extends to his personal life. Hismost important accomplishment is adopting five children from foster care. He and his wife, Amy, a special education teacher at Enid High School, have seven children. “We adopted our youngest five after fostering them for two years,” he said.
Mr. McKinney teaches yearbook, digital arts/journalism, and ACT prep. He is a junior class sponsor and the National Honor Society sponsor. “I really enjoy that I get to work with almost every student in the school, whether it is workingan event for the yearbook, having students volunteer to do class reunion tours or the Special Education Prom. Getting to see how selfless our EHS students can be when helping others is very rewarding,” he said.
His favorite memory of teaching involved a student who refused to participate in the class. Mr. McKinney showed this student his classroom was a safe space for healthy debate and discussion.
“He started participating and passed the class and would stop by my classroom to say hello throughout the rest of his high school career. His grandmother thanked me over and over again,” he says, “but to be honest, it was just the young man taking the initiative. The only thing I did was give the young man a chance to use his voice without fear of being shut down.”
Mr. McKinney’s classes are largely project-based. This carries a great deal of responsibility. “Students explore the world using their lens to express themselves. The cool thing is that most assignments have unlimited possibilities and no answer to any question is ever the same from one student to the next,” he said.
There is one thing Mr. McKinney wants to pass on to his students. “The secret to happiness is to be yourself, be kind to others, and be bold.”
