North Augusta education graduate inspires students to dream big
Using quotes from Walt Disney such as “if you can dream it, you can do it,” Nikki Mock shares her love of reading to her students every day.
Mock, a 2008 Southern Wesleyan University North Augusta M.Ed. graduate and fifth-grade reading and writing teacher at Hammond Hill Elementary School in North Augusta, S.C., was recently named Teacher of the Year by the Aiken County School District.
When she enrolled at Southern Wesleyan’s North Augusta location, she soon learned that the master of education program was a convenient way to advance professionally in a manner that fit her busy schedule. Helpful Southern Wesleyan faculty and staff members and great classmates were an added benefit.
“Everyone seems to care about everyone else and you really feel like you become part of a family,” Mock said, adding that the friendships she made with members of her learning team continue after graduation.
Mock also found the weekly devotions and prayer times at the start of her classes to be refreshing.
“In most colleges you get a secular view of the world and it can pull you down. I found Southern Wesleyan’s spiritually charged classroom experience to be a nudging voice in my heart to listen to what God would have me to do in my life and the lives of my students,” she said.
Read Mock’s story in the Augusta Chronicle online.