Hands-On Inspiration on World Teacher’s Day
What does owning a small transportation business and teaching K-5 at a progressive magnet school have in common?
A lot, according to Disney.
When Disney was looking to improve its Youth Education Services (YES) program—a program offered to students and teachers across the country as a hands-on educational field trip at Disney World—they approached Rhonda Adams. Rhonda is a teacher at the Gibbs Magnet School of International Studies and Foreign Languages in Little Rock, Ark., who has very successfully incorporated hands-on experiences from her small transportation business into her students’ educational activities. Some of the YES curriculum this year is a direct result of Rhonda’s input, which emphasizes the interconnection of her experiences as a teacher and a small-business owner.
Rhonda and her husband, Maurice, own AdamzPhamily Inc and Adamzphamily II, two small businesses that work with FedEx Ground to transport packages to homes and businesses throughout central Arkansas. Her hard work and dedication aligns well with the FedEx Ground business model, which affords entrepreneurs the freedom to manage their own businesses, and has allowed Rhonda to both teach and own a business.
As you might imagine, managing a business with 11 drivers and 10 trucks feeds the unique perspective that Rhonda brings to her classroom. She has developed real-world situations gleaned from her time as a business owner to give her students a tactile sense of the challenges an entrepreneur may face every day. Students have also learned more about the transportation industry, and are exercising their writing and marketing skills through activities like writing public service announcements on safe-driving topics. Perhaps most exciting, girls in Rhonda’s classroom, who never before had considered a profession in the stereotypically male-dominated field, now get excited by both entrepreneurialism as well as a position in the transportation industry.
World Teacher’s Day was October 5 and now is the perfect opportunity to celebrate teachers like Rhonda, who strive every day to enrich and enhance our children’s lives through education! Thank you!
