De'Garryan Andrews, a high-performing teacher at Crossroad Academy in Gadsden County, uses different methods to reach students.

De’Garryan Andrews began acting at the young age of 4. Growing up in Gadsden County, a rural county west of the state capital, that acting career broadened his horizons.

It helped him land roles on TV and in movies. It propelled him to Florida State University, and then on to Los Angeles to continue his theater studies.

Now he’s returned home, and acting helps inform his practice in one of his school district's highest-performing, most-expectation-defying English classrooms.

Andrews does not simply stand in front of the class and teach.

He shows students films to teach concepts like cause and effect. He includes pop-culture references to teach them about allusions. He brings life lessons into the classroom, and he is hands-on. If his students are reading a book, he reads it along with them. He encourages seventh- and eighth-graders out of their shells.

He's able to connect, in part, because he knows what it is like to grow up in Gadsden County, where more than a quarter of the population lives in poverty.

And like the other teachers at Crossroad Academy, an award-winning charter school that defies stereotypes, Andrews knows his students can excel.

“It fuels my drive,” he said. “I know the talent that Gadsden County has, and that is what I am trying to pull out of these children, so that good things can come out of Gadsden County."

Drawn to teach (more…)