Grounded in Grit and Gratitude: One Principal’s Journey from Embryology to Education Written by Lori Brown
As a middle school student in a military family stationed at Camp Lejeune (NC), Dr. Amanda Childers often joined her mom for Saturday morning yard sales. A growing fascination with science around age thirteen caused her to purchase a yard sale textbook on embryology. She finished the book rapidly and began asking, “If so many things can go wrong during fetal development, then why don’t we work to fix that?” For the remainder of her middle and high school years, Childers focused heavily on science courses for the purpose of pursuing Pre-Med with a specialization in embryology.
As she entered Western Carolina University on a Valedictorian Scholarship for the Honors College, Childers found herself surrounded by unique courses and career pathways. Consequently, she began to rethink her original career plans.
Teaching had always been in the back of her mind, but her fascination with science kept pushing it to the background of possibilities until one day, she realized her passions had changed. She studied to complete a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Social Work, and a few months later entered a pathway at Western Carolina University that enabled her to complete a master’s in Teaching in Special Education, along with a state licensure. Education became her new calling, and the public schools of Western North Carolina became her new home.
In the fall of 2008, Childers landed her first job as a public school Special Education teacher for students with moderate to significant disabilities, including autism. She flourished in this role, and realized her life’s calling. Over the next decade, she continued to grow in skill and knowledge, assuming roles that included the titles of “instructional coach,” “curriculum specialist,” and “assistant principal,” roles she knows prepared her for her current position as an elementary school principal for Henderson County Public Schools.
Despite the shift from embryology to education, Childers’ fascination with growth and development never lessened, but instead, took on a new focus with an older subject. To this day, she remains focused on personal and professional growth, as well as the growth of her staff and students. In her first year as a new principal, her school hosted a “Growth Parade” during which each child highlighted their personal areas of academic growth. The smiles on everyone’s faces along with the confidence exhibited by her students filled her heart with pride.
Childers consistently challenges herself to look for growth opportunities, a fact evidenced by her recent completion of a doctorate in Educational Leadership. As one might imagine, the rigors of a full-time leadership role along with her daily role as a mom and wife can sometimes be overwhelming. Childers and her husband have six children, five of whom are still at home, including one with special needs. Balancing doctor, dentist, and occupational therapy appointments with PTA meetings and community recreation can prove to be challenging. Childers admits that she sometimes feels “Mom Guilt,” wondering if she’s as present as she needs to be for her family.
She keeps herself grounded on all that really matters by exercising a spirit of gratitude, and by staying true to her core values of security, continuous improvement, excellence, service, and innovation.
As a woman of faith, she partners her daily spirit of gratitude with prayer, a combination that keeps her thankful, joyful, and focused. Plus, she exercises “grit” to stick to her values, making sure she serves in a manner that enables adults and children to feel safe and secure to effectively learn, grow, and make an impact.
For aspiring female leaders, Childers recommends remaining flexible. She says that remaining flexible doesn’t mean throwing away your core values or integrity, though. Instead, she challenges leaders to exercise grit to remain grounded in things that truly matter. She personally defines grit as:
“…grit means persisting and persevering. It means problem-solving and making sound, ethical decisions – even in tough situations. It means having integrity and holding fast to your values, beliefs and ethics.”
Because Dr. Childers remained true to her early vision of impacting change, while serving others with integrity and perseverance, she became a different type of doctor than the one she had originally envisioned, but a doctor who is nonetheless just as impactful. Every day, Childers embraces her leadership role as an opportunity to help young children determine what they need to grow, thrive, and survive amidst turbulent global times, and that is a leadership calling that gets an A+ in her gradebook.