It was the words of encouragement from Shayna Walters’s mother that led Walters into a career in education.
“I always took my study guides, and I would teach them to my mom,” Walters said. “My mom–just randomly after one test–said, ‘You would be a really good teacher,’ and that’s all she wrote.”
After graduating from East Carolina University with a bachelor’s degree in science and education, Walters worked at South Central High School in Pitt County Schools before coming to Chapel Hill High School for the 2019-2020 school year.
“Things change when you go from district to district, and I like how helpful the people in this district are,” Walters said of her transition.
Walters added that she likes the town of Chapel Hill.
“It’s nice; it’s very cute,” she said. “I go exploring with my friends.”
Walters said she enjoys teaching high school students because of the “level of conversation” she can have with them.
“I love the connections I get to make with students,” she said. “I think high school is a really great age group for me.”
Walters also explained how the unpredictability of her job is like a double-edged sword.
“I love walking in every day and not knowing what I’m going to get,” she said. “I also don’t like walking in every day and not knowing what I am going to get.”
Walters grew up on a peninsula in Virginia, and the ocean has always been a part of her life.
“Anywhere you go from my house, we’re always on the water,” she said. “I grew up on the beach.”
Walters’s proximity to the ocean helped to spark her passion for marine biology, and she received her scuba diving license at East Carolina University.
And although Walters currently teaches standard and honors earth science, she said her dream is to teach biology and marine biology at Chapel Hill High School before going back to school. Walters would like to get her Ph.D in marine biology so she can become a professor at the collegiate level.
“I want to be a marine biologist when I grow up,” she noted with a grin on her face.
