Renee Nicole Ross has taught Art I and Design at Enid High School for two years now. Before this she taught elementary art in Tulsa for 15 years. She says that her favorite thing about teaching is making connections with her students and watching them grow.
“When I taught elementary it was very rewarding to see their skills evolve,” said Ross. “The start of the year, you could barely read their writing, and by the end, it was legible. Teaching high school feels like I’m picking up where I left off with my elementary kids; like I’m getting to see that next chapter of their life. We get to take the skills they learned from elementary and middle school and build on it. It makes me tear up just writing this, but attending graduation was very emotional last year. Getting to see my students reach the finish line was so special. These kids make me proud and I’m thankful to be some part of their journey.”
The influence for Ross to begin her journey as an educator came at a time when she needed encouragement the most, and it came from a teacher.
“I felt very lost my senior year of high school,” said Ross. “My dad was diagnosed with brain cancer and I couldn’t imagine a future without him. One of the art teachers at my school, Mrs. VanPatten, suggested I be an art teacher and pointed out how I was good at helping my classmates with projects so they’d pass. She was a great teacher (now retired) and the fact that she thought I’d be a good one meant a lot to me. My father passed when I was 19, but I continued with my art degree at Oral Roberts University. I know that the life I lead, and my career in teaching, would make him proud.”
Ross emphasizes that parents are the first, and most important, teacher in a student’s life. “They are the ones who lay that foundation, and we are the ones who build upon it,” she said. She quotes Matthew Jacobson saying: “Behind every young child who believes in himself is a parent who believed first.”
Ross will have the chance to be that for her first child, a baby girl due in March, with her husband of three years, Trevor. They look forward to passing on the tradition of generations of farming as they live on a working farm.
