Zachary Barrow sensed his William James Middle School coworkers were acting a little strange towards him the morning of Tuesday, Dec. 13. Then he heard children making a wild racket in the cafeteria — just before 10 a.m. That's not normal, he thought.

Then again, it wasn't an ordinary day. Georgia Southern University was staging its 2022 Fall Commencement ceremony at the Statesboro campus that Tuesday. Unlike most of his fellow graduates, Barrow had already been working full-time since August, putting the knowledge and skills he learned to use while earning his final credits to graduate.

He had earned the right to walk across the stage at Paulson Stadium that day, but instead, he chose to be with his students in the classroom he now led.

His coworkers and students just couldn't let that pass unrecognized.

In an effort led by sixth-grade department chair Dee Hudgens, the school staged a surprise private graduation ceremony presided over by WJMS principal Scott Chapman.

The entire sixth-grade student body erupted into thunderous applause, cheering and pounding tables upon Barrow’s entrance into the cafeteria.

After a short speech, Chapman, dressed out in his academic regalia, concluded, “Without further ado, and with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto, it is my honor to recognize Mr. Zachary Barrow as a 2022 graduate of the Georgia Southern University College of Education.”

If we don’t hire him, someone else will

As part of a practicum class in the College of Education at Georgia Southern back in March 2022, Barrow was shadowing William James teacher Tom Borck when Borck was called away from his classroom unexpectedly. As school policy requires every classroom to be supervised by a certified teacher, principal Chapman sat in for Borck but allowed Barrow to take the reins. He could barely believe what he saw.

“Wow, this dude is killin’ it,” Chapman recalled thinking. “He's teaching (the subject matter) the way it should be taught. The way he interacted with the kids in the classroom, that level of back and forth, that mutual respect that you don't always see with student teachers. I thought, we need to keep him on our radar.”

When an opening for a sixth-grade social studies teaching position presented itself, Chapman immediately reached out to both Bulloch County Schools administrators and Georgia Southern to find out how they could hire Barrow, even though he hadn’t yet graduated or even completed his required student teaching. In part because there is a teacher shortage in Georgia, the collaboration produced a solution in which Barrow would be hired as a full-time teacher on a provisional certification while getting credit for student teaching in order to graduate.

Barrow, 21, hit the ground running in August.

A Head Start

Saying that teaching is in Barrow's blood is not a figure of speech. His parents are both educators — his father is the principal at Montgomery County Middle/High School, and his mother teaches social studies there.

Growing up, Barrow moved frequently as his parents' careers took them to various locations across South Georgia, but wherever home was at the time, it was a home where hosting sports teams overnight and shuttling students around outside of school hours was the norm. It was where lives were built around students and their care.

"I've been told my entire life I can do what I want. But seeing the impacts that my parents made, seeing how much difference they made in their students’ lives, that made the biggest difference for me,” Barrow said.

Chapman recognized the polish produced by that upbringing right away. He noted how Barrow took the lead in organizing field trips and other activities, which is unusual for a first-semester teacher.

“It's sort of in his blood. You can tell he knows the lingo,” Chapman said. “He just picks up on everything so fast, and he just always wants to do more.”

Barrow has been assisting teachers and coaches in one form or another since he was in middle school, so managing a classroom and dealing with the stress it produces is nothing new.

"I think that's where a lot of young teachers struggle. It’s a huge commitment,” he said. “I learned what IEP (Individualized Education Program) was before I learned what the ABCs were, and so I've always known about education, knew that's what I was meant to do. Watching my parents work has been truly special and really helped me get to where I am today.”

Learning to teach, teaching to learn

Barrow is dual certified to teach math and social studies, but he jumped at the opportunity to do what his mother does.

“I believe that as a society, we have to go forward and have an educated society to be able to have good leaders,” he says. “The kids love history. They love hearing stories. So I try, every day, to have good lessons that the kids engage with.”

While his parents always worked at the high school level, Barrow relishes his opportunity to teach middle-schoolers.

“I never thought I'd love sixth-grade kids as much as I do,” he said. “Middle school's kind of a weird time for kids. They have a lot of going on with them, physically, mentally and emotionally. And it makes me feel better knowing that they have somebody that they can trust, and they have somebody that they can rely on in the school in myself.”

Barrow believes that attending students' extracurricular activities helps him connect to them in the classroom, so he’s attended every football game and home basketball game since starting his job at William James.

"I go to every single thing that I can see my kids play. And it's paid off because, the next day, they are like, ‘Mr. Barrow, did you see me do this?’” he said. “And that's something else that I've seen my parents do for years. I've been growing up going to high school football and basketball games since before I could walk."

The COVID-19 pandemic created challenges for professional teachers and education students alike, but Barrow says having humility while dealing with unforeseen circumstances is simply part of good teaching.

“Every day I come to school and there's a question that I wasn't expecting. There is an issue in my lesson that I had no idea would come up,” he said. “There's a reason for everything, and I've gotten a lot better at my use of technology in the classroom through COVID.”

He believes social studies is a research-based subject rather than a test-based one.

“I'm not worried about them memorizing what year the Cold War started,” he said. “However, I would like for them to know how to make Google (searches) fun, how to make conversations, how to present in front of a class, and how to do their own research instead of just relying on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat for their news.”

A calling

“I totally believe that God meant for me to be a teacher," Barrow said. “In 40 years, it won't matter what car I drove, what house I lived in and what friends I had — it matters what kids I impacted and what they do with their lives.”

Chapman still marvels at the commitment from such a young person.

“I have to run him out of here sometimes. ‘Go home, Zach!’” he said. “He loves these kids. And this is where he wants to be. We needed to do something special for him.”

Graduation was important to Barrow because now he can completely focus on his career.

“I am beyond excited to start this semester as a full-fledged member of the Knight family,” he said recently.

Currently, Barrow is enjoying his first holiday break as a teacher, spending time with family and friends and watching college football bowl games. He says the break was much needed, but he’s starting to miss his coworkers and students.

“My entire life has been built around students and caring for them,” Barrow explained following his surprise graduation. “And so I didn't see anything different with the graduation ceremony. My entire life is about the kids.”