English teacher Kevin Parsons was named January’s Teacher of the Month.

Parsons decided to start teaching through an unorthodox chain of events. Parsons disliked all of his English Honors teachers in high school. They were out of touch, and not very interesting. 

The 16 year educator said that he switched out of honors thinking the regular classes would be more interesting or would have better teachers and, to no avail, he moved back to the Honors class.  

Parsons read “The Great Gatsby” in 11th grade, but Parsons says, “You can’t really read Gatsby until you’ve known what it feels like to fall in love.” 

Parsons’s 12th grade English teacher was very religious and had a tendency of watering down versions of every book. It was a bad experience all through high school, and Parson’s love for literature sort of died out. 

In college at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, he was sort of lost but had an English teacher expose him to poetry. Parsons love for literature was revived. The English Departement Chair figured he would be a High School English teacher so he could encourage kids to read to grow and to develop their own passions.  He appreciates eagerness to learn, a good work ethic, and the intent to work towards some sort of goal in life. Parsons’s paramount goal is to establish a positive relationship with students and encourage them to learn. 

Parsons started teacher at Central after being relocated from his last job at The Howard School. He has been teaching here for 11 years. He spends time outside of school with his daughter and designs Dungeons and Dragons games.

Some advice from Parsons is: “It’s okay for things to be hard and it’s okay to struggle. The struggling part is how you learn.”