Isaiah Jobe-Winn Speaks at Future Educator Signing Day
Isaiah Jobe-Winn with Hyundai College of Education (HCOE) Dean Dr. Cora Thompson, faculty, and classmates from Savannah State University (SSU).
On May 6th, 2025, I had the opportunity to speak at the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System’s first Georgia Future Educators Celebration & Signing Day. Students from across the district’s Early Childhood Education pathways and Future Georgia Educators organizations came together to sign their commitment to pursue careers in education, and it was especially meaningful to be part of the celebration at a time when I was preparing to begin that same journey.
At the time, I was a senior in Savannah State University’s College of Education, serving as Mr. College of Education, and preparing to begin my own career as an educator within SCCPSS. Having graduated from Alfred Ely Beach High School just a few years earlier, I was not too far removed from being an SCCPSS student myself. I grew up in this school system, and so many of the educators I encountered along the way played a role in shaping who I am and why I ultimately chose education.
As I thought about what I wanted to share with the students that day, I kept coming back to the people who had poured into me. Some taught me in the classroom, while others mentored me, gave me opportunities, encouraged me, or saw something in me before I fully saw it in myself. I knew many of the students in that room probably had people who had done the same for them, and I wanted them to understand that they would soon have the opportunity to be that person for someone else.
I told them, “As students of SCCPSS, you have been molded by some of the most passionate, brilliant, and dedicated educators in the state, the nation, and the world. Now it’s your turn. You were raised by the best, and now, you’re becoming the next.” That message was personal for me because I would not have been standing in that room without people like Dr. M. Ann Levett, Dr. Bernadette Ball-Oliver, Dr. Raymond Barnes, Dr. Angie Lewis, Mrs. Sharonda Murrell, and so many others who invested in me throughout my journey.
We hear a lot about the challenges facing public education, especially the need to recruit and retain great teachers, but this event offered an opportunity to focus on the young people who were already choosing to become part of the profession. There was something special about watching students who had been shaped by SCCPSS educators make a commitment to one day become educators themselves, particularly because I was preparing to do the same.
Looking back, that is what I appreciate most about the opportunity. I was not speaking to those students as someone who had already reached some destination or had everything figured out. I was still a student myself, finishing my degree and preparing for my first classroom. We were simply at different points along a similar journey, shaped by educators who had poured into us and hoping to eventually do the same for the students who would come after us.
That day was a reminder of one of the things I value most about public education: its impact has a way of continuing from one generation to the next. The people who poured into me helped shape the educator I was becoming, and I left hoping that each of those future educators would carry a little bit of the people who poured into them into their own classrooms one day.
