In 1999, Amy Martin began her teaching career at the AAHS. Though her parents both also pursued careers in education, Martin did not initially think teaching was where she would land.

“I think my only act of rebellion in life was not going into education straight out of high school,” Martin said. “My mom taught and my dad taught, and they said, ‘you’d make a great teacher.’ I was like, ‘no, I’m not becoming a teacher,’ so my first degree was actually in video production in the School of Communications at Penn State. Then I got out and I stayed local. I didn’t really want to be at TV 10 forever, so I worked in advertising for a while. Then I worked as the elect case manager, and then I went back to school to get my teaching certificate to teach. I’ve always enjoyed working with young people–I ran the youth group at our church for like 1000 years–so it was a natural fit. English was a good fit for me.”

Prior to her time as a teacher, Martin worked in the school’s teen parent program which has also allowed her to retire early.

“I’m able to retire when I am because I had years in the district in other capacities,” Martin said. “I worked in our teen parent program as an elect case mentor for young moms and dads to try to keep them in school. I had some years there that counted towards my 30 that you need to retire early.”

Martin’s teaching career has been decorated with memories she is fond of, but above all, she is grateful for the friends she has made throughout her career.

“I was fortunate enough for my first I don’t even know how many years to end up with a best friend teacher beside me,” Martin said. “Amy Vinglish came in a year after me, and she and I think the same and approach things logically the same. We were great to bounce ideas off of as we were both building up what we did. Getting to work with her and just doing stupid, silly stuff for the kids, reading challenges where we wore god awful, ugly ‘Survivor’ necklaces if we won and making up games to silly games to play for her ‘Hunger Games’ thing that she ran; that was a high point for me…. My current corner of friends is pretty awesome. I was a B Building teacher all my life, so when we moved to the A building, we were all a little thrown off, like, ‘what is this concrete place?’ because we had the nice wooden floors and the brick walls, and it was warm and homey. Then, we were moved here, and we were like, ‘we’re in a science building; I know this is science,’ so it’s been nice to have my corner of friends here, and we’ve been able to support each other and get started.”

In addition to the friends she has made, Martin has also enjoyed her time participating in readers’ workshops.

“I think one of the best things was getting involved with readers’ workshops and getting to build libraries in our classrooms,” Martin said. “There’s easy access to put books in kids’ hands, and make it materials that they want to read so that we can build readers before they leave here. That was really important to me, and I enjoyed being a part of that.”

Martin decided this year was the year to retire as it is the first year she is eligible to do so.

“Age wise, I’m the right age to be able to retire early, and you have to have at least 30 years, and I have 30.9,” Martin said. “I’d really like to have time to travel with my husband. I’d like to have more time to spend with my kids and with my mom just to have an opportunity to go. Two personal days a year does not cut it if you want to travel and see things, so I’m really looking forward to that aspect.”

Heading into retirement, Martin doesn’t have any set plans, but she looks forward to having time to relax.

“I don’t have anything planned yet,” Martin said. “I was given advice to make sure I just say ‘no’ to everything the first year that’s like, ‘serve on this committee,’ ‘serve on that committee,’ ‘join this,’ so I’m just going to take some time, and I’m going to read the pile of books that I haven’t gotten to read because I’ve been reading student writings, and just relax with my family and plan some trips; that’ll be it.”

From her time as a teacher, Martin has learned the importance of treating every student with kindness.

“I’ve learned that you never really know everything somebody is bringing with them: all the baggage they’re carrying, all the hopes they have, all the concerns they have, you can’t possibly know all that, so treat each person well and the best you can,” Martin said. “I wouldn’t ever want to be the person that tipped someone–that they were just so upset, and I was the tipping point of them not being able to pull back from it or something, so just that idea of treating everyone with great care and kind of doing your best by them.”

According to Martin, aside from making the most of every moment, she has not treated this year any differently than previous years.

“Teachers sometimes get a rep[utation] for, when they’re retiring, they’re like, ‘oh, they don’t need to know anything,’” Martin said. “I think my students would argue that point, because they’ve done a lot of work this year, so it hasn’t been that. It has been taking advantage of those last opportunities, and reaching out to some of the people. Teaching is so strange; we make such good friendships, but once your classroom moves, you don’t see people. You see the people near you and not really anyone else. It’s been interesting this year to try to make an effort to get out and see some of my friends that, because of logistics and moving things, I haven’t been able to be with as much.”

Above all, Martin’s favorite part of teaching has been the students she has taught.

“I love seeing them learn something and get something,” Martin said. “I like watching them mature and grow just in the year that I teach them. They’re different people when they walk through my door in August versus when they leave in May. That’s my favorite part, and that’s the thing I’ll miss the most.”

As her time at the AAHS comes to a close, Martin hopes her legacy is creating a stable environment for her students.

“I’ve been teaching a long time, and I had seniors pretty early on, so I had kids who
are 40 years old now. So I have 40-year-old people coming up to me and being like, ‘you taught me English; I was in your senior English class,’ and they remembered it and liked it,” Martin said. “My mom always raised me, as soon as I said I was going into education, she’s like, ‘you need to remember that the time a kid spends in your classroom might be the very best part of their day; make it that,’ and I’ve always tried to be stable and fair and consistently kind and happy when I’m here, because I think it’s so important to be the same person for the kids every day, and not have days where you come in and they’re like, ‘ooh, scary,’ so I hope that’s the legacy: that there can be more people that really go out of their way to make the time a kid spends in your room, maybe, the best part of their day.”

For aspiring teachers, Martin feels that the most important characteristics a teacher can possess are conscientiousness, fairness, stability and creativity.

“If you aren’t working outside of your school day, and you’re just kind of pulling things together as the kids are here, it’s not great,” Martin said. “You have to be fair; there’s no playing favorites in a classroom. You have to be the most stable and calm individual in the room. When we had the swatting incident a few years ago, I had a student teacher with me, and she came up and she kind of whispered, ‘aren’t you afraid?’ I was like, ‘yeah, but I can’t be right now, because I need to be calm and in control. And being creative. I don’t think creativity gets enough oomph anymore. In education, everybody’s about ticking the boxes and getting these things in, but just constantly pushing myself to come up with new ways to make it relevant for the kids that are in front of me because the kids that are in front of me now are not the same kids who were in front of me that are now 40-year-olds, and they have a whole different ball of wax on their plate, so keeping that in mind [is most valuable].”

In addition, Martin has one piece of advice for anyone thinking of going into the teaching field.

“If you don’t love what you do, this isn’t your career,” Martin said. “If I didn’t have the love for teaching and the love for watching students learn, the other things that meet you within a day would be too much to take.”