Darryl Franklin: No Looking Back After Career Change

Did you originally set out to be an education major? 

Actually, my background was in engineering graphics. I was kind of in between jobs. I worked for Duke Power for a while and had a layoff during Desert Storm, and so I visited AU to speak to Joellen Harris about possibly getting a trade certificate to teach mechanical drawing. She invited me to visit a classroom with her. We went to a fifth-grade classroom at Calhoun Elementary to observe a math lesson, and I just fell in love with it. I came back to the school and straight over to Jim Padgett in admissions and got the registration process started. 

Why did you choose AU? 

At the time my dad worked there in the physical plant and my brother was enrolled there as a business major. I honestly stopped by just to get information. At the time I hadn't planned on going into education other than doing mechanical drawing, but once I talked with Dr. Harris for a little while and visited that classroom, I just felt like that's where I needed to be. 

What subject do you teach? 

I teach eighth-grade science. My first year here was seventh-grade math and then I moved over to science. 

How long ago did you come to West-Oak Middle? 

I just finished my third year here. 

Before that, where were you teaching? 

I spent three years at Anderson Christian School, three years at Tamassee-Salem Elementary and then 11 years at Southwood Middle School in Anderson 5. I took about a 10-year break to run a business before I came back into education. 

Reflect on being honored as Teacher of the Year. 

 On a day-to-day basis, my concern is with my students. I do high fives in the hallways. I always make a point to let my students know I’m proud of them or I care about them, or I’ll tell them they’re awesome—those kinds of things. So to get the recognition from my colleagues makes it a little more special... It just lets me know that other people see not only what I'm doing in the classroom, but on a day-to-day basis  at West-Oak. Even though I teach on the eighth-grade hallway I walk down the sixth- and seventh-grade hallways, letting them know someone in the building cares about them.  

Are there any times when you get "aha" moments when you notice a "light bulb" going off in a student who's grasping something that you're trying to teach? 

In science I get a lot, just because they have so many misconceptions about the world around them; and when they hear it from a different point of view or different angle, it helps them understand a little bit better. I guess the "aha" moments—when I taught Algebra 1... It's cool to see a child go from the concrete to the abstract. You can see the expression change in the classroom that "hey, it just finally clicked in that moment.” Seeing it on their faces is what I love. 

How long have the robotics competitions been going on? 

I first got involved in robotics when I was at Southwood 15, 16 years ago. At that time it was FIRST LEGO League, a LEGO-based product. When they interviewed me here three years ago, they asked me if I'd be willing to start a team back up; and so this past year I told them I'm 60 years old. If you want a team, we better get started soon. We started our first team last year—it's called VEX Robotics. We compete both at the middle school and high school level. We finished the year ranked twentieth in the state out of a little over 100 teams. This year we've expanded it to four teams. It's kind of neat—you get a little bit of science, you get a little bit of engineering involved in it. The kids go through that mechanical process and the engineering process of thinking through a problem, finding a solution. If that solution doesn't work, we regroup and plan another solution.  

Our competitions last about 12 hours. They form an alliance with another team and go head-to-head against two other teams. We've been lucky enough to be paired up with some high school teams, which for a middle schooler you would think would be intimidating, but these high school teams—they teach, they're great role models for these younger engineers, so last year we were quite successful. We were very pleased with it. 

This year we decided to do the little one week camp so that some of these newer team members can get used to just using the tools putting the nuts and bolts together. Some of them have no experience with that at all, so it's worked out pretty good. We created two different classifications this year. One is V5, which is more the metal pieces and parts. The other one is called VEX IQ, which is LEGO-based snap together pieces. 

Are they learning coding or anything like that? 

There is some coding. The competition—each round is two minutes, but the first 15 seconds is autonomous. That's where they'll get their coding practice in and then the rest is wireless driving, like a Wi-Fi type connection, similar to the gaming systems that they use, so most of the kids are pretty good at it.  

Some of the coding is a little more advanced. Some of it is drag-and-drop blocks into place, and then you program each block. Then others go into some of the C++ and Python coding techniques. I’m amazed that the middle school students would understand Python because it’s so far above my head that they teach me half the time. 

I presume that C++ and Python would be a valuable thing to have some knowledge in. 

Absolutely—especially when they go further into engineering. The high school Career Center has an engineering class. They use a lot of Python over there. When I was 12 and 13 years old, I would have never thought to get into any type of coding or that type of thing, but a lot of these kids come to me and that's what they do at home in their spare time—they play with Python. 

What are some ways you feel your AU education has helped you the most? 

One thing I loved about the education department, depending on which education professor you've had for a particular subject... Each had their own way of presenting, which gave me a variety of examples of things to model my classrooms after. Dr. Joelyn Harris at the time—great, great person who took me under her wing. I was a freshman and she had me going with her substitute teaching whenever she was doing some of her presentations and so I got a lot of hands-on experience in the education department there.  

The science teachers were very hands-on, which is how I like running my classroom. I'm not a textbook-oriented teacher, I love to be doing. We build rockets. We build race cars. Every week we've got something else going on in the classroom, and a lot of that came from the experiences I had at AU. 

What kind of advice would you give someone wanting to become a teacher? 

If you're looking for something that's rewarding more than in monetary value, education is the way to go. I know that on a daily basis I make an impact on someone's life; not all careers give you that opportunity. 

There’s a story about how you and your wife went through your education at Anderson. Can you share it? 

My wife and I lived on campus until she got pregnant with twins and we figured it was time to find us a spot before the twins were born. We were at Rouse Hall—I was a residence hall supervisor. Rouse Hall has two buildings. We had the little apartment between the two buildings. We were there for about four years back then. My wife Beverly was director of the bookstore for years there. We moved on campus in 1993.  

I enrolled in January 1992. I can't remember exactly what tuition was then, but my wife and I were married and we were trying to plan a family. After the first semester I had taken a job on campus as an audio-visual person. I would carry televisions to the classrooms and those kind of things. At the time Dr. (Mark) Hopkins was the president and I would go with him to Sertoma Club meetings and those kind of things and set up mics. At the end of that first semester, I went over to Financial Aid and talked to Jim Padgett. I told him that I was probably going to transfer because, financially, trying to raise a family and paying back student loans was going to be difficult. Mr. Padgett said “Give me a day or two and I'll get back to you.” The very next day he called me into his office. He said, Dr. (Jim) Whitlow wants you to come to his office, and so I went up to Dr. Whitlow's office.  

Dr. Whitlow told me that President Mark Hopkins said as long as I worked on that campus to make me faculty-staff status. From that point on both I and my wife got our tuition paid for. The two of us got four-year degrees for the price of one semester. If Anderson College (at the time) hadn't done that for me, I would not be in this classroom right now. I would not have been able to afford the tuition as a married adult trying to raise a family, and so the 18 years that I have in education now... I started teaching 31 years ago, but with my business I took some time off. I owe the 18 years of experience I have to Anderson University, for them being able to do that for us.