Anissa Holland
thefranklinpressnews@gmail.com
The North Carolina Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (NCACTE) recognized Caitlin Lambert as the 2022 Outstanding Student Teacher of the Year. Lambert was nominated from the graduating class at Western Carolina University for her display of resilience under difficult circumstances surrounding her student teaching placement.
In January 2021, she began her internship at East Franklin Elementary School spending two days a week in her third grade classroom. Once the new school year started in August, she was in the classroom full-time with a new group of third graders. But during the second week of school, Lambert’s host teacher had to leave indefinitely after an accident left her husband injured and unable to care for himself.
“It was definitely a unique experience, because student teachers are usually eased into taking over the classroom full-time,” said Lambert. “I was not expecting it to happen the second week of school.”
Typically, Lambert would have been placed in a different class or school altogether, but given the circumstances, East Franklin and WCU created a partnership which allowed her to complete her internship in the same classroom under the supervision of a certified substitute teacher. For the remainder of the semester, she took on the responsibility of managing the classroom. Her mentor teacher eventually returned as a virtual instructor while Lambert remained in the classroom.
“My mentor teacher was incredible,” she said. “Even virtually, she went above and beyond to be there for me with planning, assisting and teaching. She trusted me so much with her class allowing me to take over the way I did. I really got the full experience of being a teacher while I was still an intern.”
Lambert graduated in December 2021 from WCU with a degree in elementary education and double minors in English and teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and a licensure in TESOL. After graduation, she finished the school year as an interim teacher in her third grade class. This year, Lambert has her own first grade class at East Franklin with over a year of teaching already under her belt.
Before her internship, she spent a semester teaching TESOL full-time. COVID changed her plans to study abroad in China, and with it being too late to enroll in classes at WCU, she took the opportunity to work as a TESOL instructor.
While at East Franklin, Lambert was nominated for the N.C. Student Teacher of the Year Award. After submitting an essay, list of references and being named a top 5 finalist, she was officially recognized as the recipient of the award at the 40th annual NCACTE forum in Raleigh last month.
“Considering everything that I, my mentor teacher, East Franklin and WCU went through to get me through my internship, receiving this award was so special and such an honor. We all go into something with an expectation of it turning out a certain way, and a lot of the time it doesn’t go how we planned at all. I’m a firm believer that no matter the situation you’re in, good can come out of it or you can learn something from it even if it wasn’t what you thought you wanted.”
“It was really something providential that I was able to be at East Franklin,” she continued. “There were so many situations leading up to this point that didn’t work out how I wanted them to, but I look back now and realize it all needed to happen exactly the way it did for me to be where I am now, and I’m grateful for that.”
Outside of the classroom, Lambert enjoys reading, traveling, being outdoors and pursuing writing on the side as a published author. She keeps a copy of her debut novel “What Lies Above” in her classroom at East Franklin to motivate her students.
“They love it, and it’s a great thing for them to see,” she said. “I started working on my first novel when I was 12 years old, so I tell my students that if there’s something they want to do, being in school doesn’t mean they can’t do it.”