Spotlight 4 Success

Building Enthusiasm with Heart

• American Book Company • Season 1

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What if you could transform a struggling student’s perspective on math with just a little inspiration and a lot of heart? In this episode of Spotlight for Success, we’re joined by the passionate and lively Danielle Stewart from Sedgefield Middle School. Danielle shares her journey from a young aspiring teacher in Ohio to a beloved educator in South Carolina. Her enthusiasm for teaching eighth-grade math is contagious as she opens up about how she strives to make students love math just a bit more by the end of the year. With her dedication to student growth, both in and out of the classroom, Danielle captures the essence of what it means to be a teacher who truly cares.

Devin Pintozzi:

Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. We are here at the South Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics with our special guest, Danielle Stewart of Sedgefield Middle School. Welcome, Danielle.

Danielle Stewart:

Thank you, happy to be here.

Devin Pintozzi:

Great. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience here at SCCTM?

Danielle Stewart:

Well, this is my first year and I'm really excited to be here. I'm with an assistant principal and myself, and it's been great connecting with other teachers and also the people here in the exhibits. I'm just having a blast.

Devin Pintozzi:

That's wonderful. Danielle, Can you tell us a bit about your experience in Berkeley County Schools? Have you always been at that middle school? That's their first place, right?

Danielle Stewart:

This is my fourth year teaching and it's the only place that I've been at. I moved from Ohio for this job, so this is the dream to come and teach middle school and I absolutely love where I work.

Devin Pintozzi:

Oh, that is wonderful. Can you share with us what brought you into teaching?

Danielle Stewart:

I have wanted to be a teacher since I was in kindergarten. I was that kid who came home from school and played school. I would, you know, get any kid around the neighborhood, my grandma and we would just put them in front of plastic tubs and that was their desk, you know, doing homework and projects. My grandmother would mail me homework that I would give her. She said I was a very strict teacher when I was young.

Devin Pintozzi:

That's amazing. What brought you into? Do you have any special moments you can share that have happened in your classroom? An aha moment with the students?

Danielle Stewart:

you know, teaching eighth grade math, at that point a lot of my kids sometimes have given up. They don't like math, they think math is not for them. And I try really hard at the beginning of the year I tell them, you know, my goal is to make you like it just a little bit more. Just a little bit more.

Danielle Stewart:

I'm not trying to make you love math, um, and usually by the end of the year they have agreed that. You know, I did get them that extra step, so that always feels good. And then I'm really active in our community and so I like to go to some of our high school events and seeing previous students and a lot of them come back and they're like, oh my gosh, Ms. Stewart, you were so right, like everything you said came true. I should have listened to you then and I'm like I know I'm right, like you should have listened right

Devin Pintozzi:

That's wonderful. you share with us anything that you'd like to share with the SCCTM community here?

Danielle Stewart:

you know it's super cheesy, but remembering why we got here to begin with, you know it's for the kids. Everything you do is for the kids and sometimes the things outside you know really suck, for lack of a better term, but we remember that we're there for the kids and for their well-being.

Devin Pintozzi:

That is wonderful, Danielle. Well, danielle, thank you so much. Danielle Stewart, with Berkeley County Schools, thank you so much for being part of this podcast and we look forward to hearing more about you, maybe next year when we come by.

Danielle Stewart:

Okay, thanks.

Devin Pintozzi:

Thank you.