Features EditorEnglish teacher and yearbook advisor Chris Stapleton was selected by his co-workers as the 2014 Apex High School Teacher of the Year on November 3.
“It’s very, very touching… And to know that they feel that I am okay at my job means a lot,” Stapleton said about being awarded. He also wanted his fellow teachers to know, “It could have easily been most of you.”
After receiving his Bachelor’s degree in
English and psychology, from N.C. State in 2001, he moved to Chicago in hopes
of getting a publishing job. Things did not turn out as he had hoped and he
ended up being a waiter at a predominately vegetarian restaurant. While working
there a man dropped off a few copies of an up and coming magazine.
Stapleton looked through it and enjoyed it saying, “It had some interesting
articles.” Another
day Stapleton was serving the man behind it all and told him he enjoyed the
magazine, in turn he told him he should write for it. Stapleton started out
working for it on a voluntary basis until he got hired full time. “So why did I
get into journalism? I served the right guy a breakfast burrito at the right
time in his life,” Stapleton said.
Later on Stapleton was working as a
night editor for the News and Observer, “It was a super easy job,” he said,
which led his decision to pursue another career. “When it comes to literacy
there is producing things people want to read and then there is creating a disposition
in people that makes people curious about reading or about learning. I had been
working on the creation side of things and I was curious in being on the side
of things where I take part in people being more literate.” This prompted
Stapleton returned to school, this time at UNC Chapel Hill, receive a Master’s
in education.
Currently in
his eighth year of teaching, Stapleton has had his share of surprises. An
example of this is when he was asked to teach the yearbook class. “In life
sometimes people ask you to do things and the way people ask you is not really
them asking you, but them telling you. This is my sixth year doing yearbook, so
two years into being here, they asked me but told me [to teach the class].”
Although
Stapleton describes himself as “not a very sentimental or nostalgic person,” he
enjoys teaching yearbook for a variety of reasons. “One of the reasons I like
it is because it is unlike any other class. Where it is not so much a class, it
is a workplace. You’re not passively sitting there being taught things, not
taking tests, not doing homework, but you are working on the ‘mother of all
group projects,” Stapleton explains. He likes seeing his students go from
school to yearbook, “And equal to that, I enjoy having students for stretches
of years and seeing them develop over that time.”
Students
appreciate Stapleton’s hands-on teaching style, such as senior Brad Gooch who
says, “He’s not like any other teachers, there is hardly a day that goes by
that we just sit and listen to him talk.” Senior Jake Wnuk, who has him as both
an English and yearbook teacher says, “It’s really interesting to see his
change from teaching English to teaching yearbook, but he’s still the same old
Stapleton.” Cierra Brown, a senior, enjoys the freedom Stapleton gives his
English classes saying, “We can have discussions and he understands that we
understand.”
Perhaps the
highest praise comes from senior Jess Wight who has him in both yearbook and
English, “When he is teaching he makes everything interesting and funny. He
states things in ways that makes it interesting to us, which makes it easier to
learn.” She also spoke highly of all that he does for his students saying, “He
makes an effort to have a relationship with everybody and he makes his PowerPoints
from scratch which not many teachers do.”
Principal Matt
Wight commented on what he likes about Stapleton’s teaching style, “He is
engaging and creative in the way he teaches English. I think that really
captures the students’ attention and they enjoy it.”
Stapleton’s
wife was very proud of her husband, although Stapleton did say, “My wife, she’s
really into our baby, and there’s nothing I can really do that will come close
to rivaling, ‘Oh look, he almost rolled over.’”
When it comes
to teaching Stapleton says, “I like how every day is different as I make it. I
like that there is a very direct correlation to how I work before a class to
how that class goes.” He also enjoys seeing his boss for short periods of time
throughout the year saying, “It’s great not having people hovering over my
shoulder checking everything I do. I like being trusted, I don’t like
authority.”
Stapleton will
be invited to the annual Wake County Teacher of the Year banquet in May. All
teachers selected as their school’s Teacher of the Year are eligible to be in
the running for the Wake County Teacher of the Year. From there 26
semi-finalists will be selected, each being observed by members of the Teacher
of the Year committee. Thirteen finalists are then selected; the winner is
announced at the banquet.
