Katie Fowler is a Honor Gifted Language Arts teacher at Mill Creek High School. She has been a teacher at Mill Creek for 10 years. Fowler graduated from Jefferson High School. She then went on to graduate from The University of Georgia where she earned her PhD.
Originally she wanted to be an orthodontist and took Organic Chemistry, “Then I went back to the drawing board, really thought about it, and decided I wanted to be a teacher,” she continues, “I really started thinking about the longevity of my career and I felt like if I became a teacher, that I could help kids and also be a career that I can continue to do when I have my own kids where if I were an orthodontist, it may be too much when I have them.”
Students looks up to teachers and admire them in different ways. Some get inspired to become teachers themselves. Fowler explained, “I really loved my language arts teacher in high school. She really inspired me to become a teacher. She was just really relatable and she would just talk to us about life. She gave us a lot of choice in class and she just really had an inviting presence,” she also added how her mom was also a big inspiration in her life growing up, “She was just always open to me asking really hard questions. It wasn’t just her way or the highway. We just had a good back and forth relationship.”
The world is constantly changing. It can range from advancements in technology all the way to societal progress. The coronavirus made a big impact on the world and its future. “When I first started teaching, everything was on paper. Then enter COVID. Now everything is like we’re moving more digital,” Fowler continued to talk about how she noticed students in general have changed due to the impact of COVID, “It was as if you guys basically missed a whole year of school,” she added after talking about how it felt when going back to in person teaching.
What Fowler just wants most for students is, “I want students to just be successful. Whatever they are trying to do, whether it’s you wanting to go to college, I want to help you prepare for that. But if you want to go to a trade school, that’s great to.” Overall she just wants students to find what makes them happy during their years of high school and to put forth those steps to achieve it.
