Teachers of New Jersey: Christa Andrews, Teaching 25 years at Point Pleasant Borough Nellie Bennett Elementary School, Third Grade Special Education
I am a resource room teacher. So, that means that the students leave their homeroom, like their general education classroom, and they come into my classroom to work on reading and math in a smaller group setting. This year, my roster is eight students. I always wanted to be a teacher ever since I was a little girl. My favorite thing to play as a kid was to play school. I probably drove my friends crazy because I always wanted to be the teacher. I think that it was just something that I do believe teachers are born to do. I think it’s a natural skill set to have. I love being a teacher and helping my students learn.
When I was 19 years old, I was in college, and I was going to be going on a spring break trip. I just got a cell phone, and I called my mom and said, “You know what? I’m running late, there’s so much traffic on the parkway. If I’m not back, could you run to the bank for me?” She said, “No problem, be safe,” and she hung up the phone. When I pulled into my neighborhood, an ambulance had passed me, and I remember saying out loud, “Someone’s hurt.” And then I got to the front of my house, and there were a few police cars, and a neighbor that never came over was waiting on the driveway for me. It turned out that after my mom hung up the phone with me, she realized that my dad was still in the shower. She went into the bathroom and was calling his name, and he wasn’t answering. It turns out that he passed away suddenly that morning. He was only 47 years old. My mom was 44, I was 19, my sister was 15 and only a freshman in high school. So, in that very moment, my entire world changed.
I’m sad to this day that my dad missed so many things. He never got to meet my daughter or my husband or see me graduate. But the one positive I can take from this is that I am extremely independent. I learned things that I never knew I could do, like climb ladders and clean gutters, figure out lawn mowers, and talk to financial aid to make sure I had the funds to finish college. I did a lot of grown-up things really, really fast because my father passed away. I think that now, when I look at the kids that I teach, I think, “There’s more in this little student that’s sitting in this chair. They bring a lot with them.” I think that that’s definitely helped me as a teacher. The academics are important, but the rest of the child is what is most important to me. I want them to be happy and feel good about themselves and not be afraid of the reading and the writing and the math. It’s going to come. And if it doesn’t, it’s 2025. We’ve got computers, we’ve got all these things that’ll help them. I am just so happy to help them be the best they can and to know they are not alone.
Interview by Gregory Andrus
Portraits of the Jersey Shore
