We profiled her when she reached the five-decade mark.<\/a> She teaches kindergarten at Apopka Elementary but has worked at more than 10 schools across the county during her career.<\/p>\nThat includes teaching elementary, middle, and high school students, as well as GED, night school, and summer school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just found my niche, and I stuck with it, and I never thought about turning back,\u201d said Washington.<\/p>\n
She started her career as a permanent substitute teacher at Wheatley Elementary in Apopka. She said that early experience helped prepare her for the rest of her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt afforded me the opportunity to go to other schools later and be successful cause I looked at Wheatley like the learning ground,\u201d said Washington.<\/p>\n
Over more than five decades, Washington said she has seen classrooms change significantly, especially with technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cPencil and paper, that era is over. The chalkboards, that\u2019s over,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The shift began with limited access to computers and has continued as technology changes more quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we started in \u201975, we only had one computer, which was an Apple,\u201d Washington said. \u201cAnd it was slow, and now, technology changes within 15 days, 20 days, whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the role of teachers has also expanded since she began her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first started, you were a teacher,\u201d she said. \u201cBut now you\u2019re the teacher, you\u2019re the doctor, you\u2019re the lawyer, you\u2019re the nurse, you\u2019re everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she begins another year in kindergarten, Spectrum News asked Mrs. Washington what advice she would give to herself back during her first year of teaching.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe firm, fair and loving. That\u2019s the secret,\u201d she said. \u201cGotta be firm, gotta have boundaries, but you gotta be fair, and you got to be lovable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Washington has no plans to stop teaching. Her dedication was recognized last year when she was inducted into Apopka\u2019s Hall of Fame as Teacher of the Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"APOPKA, Fla. \u2014 As students and teachers prepare to return to school next week, one Orange County Public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4996,9995,274,54547,113,1015,115,1335,139,141,140,278,835],"class_list":["post-365722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-education","tag-app-latest-education-stories","tag-app-top-stories","tag-back-to-school","tag-education","tag-emma-delamo","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}