Pamela Harman

“My experience in the Gulf War made me very thankful to live in the country I live in. It made me thankful for the freedoms that I take for granted, the ones that many people in the world don’t have. The military gave me a great love for my country and the opportunity to do something bigger than myself. “In fact, I found that I had more potential than I ever dreamed I had. In the U.S. Marine Corps, you do so many things you’d never dream that you could accomplish; I’ve been in war, for goodness sakes.”

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Pamela Harman teaches earth science at Spain Park High School in Hoover, and she was named the 2007-08 Alabama Teacher of the Year. She is serving as an ambassador for education and will represent the state as a candidate for National Teacher of the Year. Harman is the first to say it’s an unlikely story, and her road to a career in education was long and winding. The story starts in St. Petersburg, Florida, where Harman grew up and enrolled at St. Petersburg Junior College after graduating from high school. While she was an undergraduate, her mother died, and her scholarship support ran out.

On her struggles after high school: “I grew up poor, and when my mother died and my scholarship ran out, I didn’t know what to do. I was working three jobs and going to school and living in a dead-end situation. I knew I could earn money to go to college through the Marine Corps, so I joined in 1987. “With my mother passing away, the Marines gave me a sense of community and belonging that I didn’t have. I joined really out of necessity. If I wanted to do anything other than work at Burger King, I had to make a big change.”

On her experience in the Marines: “It’s amazing that it changed my life so much. I can now rappel off a cliff. I’m an expert marksman, and I had never wielded a weapon at all before. To be good at marksmanship is something I never could have imagined. I’ve been a platoon leader. My only regret is that I was never a drill instructor, and I wanted to do that.”

On her experience at war: “We were at a base camp in the middle of the desert, about 15 miles from the Kuwait border. We provided communications support, manning a communications center, maintaining lines of communication, handling requests for supplies and ammunition. Some members of our unit moved forward to Kuwait, and others stayed in Saudi Arabia. We had a P.O.W. camp at our location, and we could see smoke of the burning oil wells from where we were. “We were a mobile unit, and I spent all of my time with other Marines. We were far removed from any social structure. We never had the opportunity to socialize with the local population or be in the community.”

On developing an interest in earth science: “It’s funny how you take something from every single person you meet. When I was in the Gulf War, I met a person who was interested in geology, and he would talk about it all the time. So when I got to UAB, I decided to take a class in geology, and I loved it. A contact with one person gave me a love for a subject that I now teach every day.”

On her experiences at UAB: “I particularly remember Dr. Scott Brande, who teaches most of the geology and earth science courses. He pushed us hard, and his expectations were so high, especially in the upper-level geology courses. But looking back now, I see that he moved me beyond what I thought I could do. And he taught me that if you put in the work, you can achieve. I still remember little things I learned in his classes.”

On the importance of earth science: “Earth science is important to us every day of our lives. The foundation our house is built on, the materials that make up our house, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the weather we live in . . . it all depends on rocks and soil. It’s a subject that relates to every single person, every single day.”

On her role as Alabama’s Teacher of the Year: “I would like to help raise accountability and standards for teachers and students. We should expect great teachers. And we should have specific standards that we expect from students, and we should work to help them meet those standards. I would like to focus on professional development for teachers. We are required to get in a certain number of hours each year, but I would like to help make sure that those are quality hours. All teachers should be learning and growing. The world is changing, and we have to keep up.”

On connecting with average students: “We have some brilliant kids at Spain Park, but regular students deserve the opportunity to go to college just as much as someone born with great intelligence. When you limit expectations, you limit the ability to succeed. Those regular students are my passion. I want to give them high expectations so they can see far beyond what they might have imagined.”

On working with today’s teens: “The classroom environment changes from year to year, but I don’t think students change so much. They might wear different clothing, and have access to different things, from year to year. But they still have young minds and bodies that need help living, that need to learn how to move to the next level.”