“Who says you can’t accomplish what you want to do?” Andrea N. Hayes implored her language arts students the first week of class at Hazelwood Southeast Middle School. “Here are your map scores,” she told the 7th graders. “Now what are you going to do to change them?”
Hayes then played a clip of Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas talking about overcoming the separation of her parents and a slew of personal doubts to become the world’s top gymnast. Later, her students set their own goals and strategies for achieving them.
“I tell my students the first week, ‘I have high expectations and I’m not lowering them,’” says Hayes, who won her school’s Teacher of the Year award this year. “I’ll help you get there but I’m not lowering my expectations at all. I mean business.”
At 38, Hayes is beacon of inspiration for students and peers who say her sheer energy is contagious. But what has led to her acclaim is nothing short of triumphing despite the odds.
A former professional dancer, cancer survivor and lettered master of teaching, Hayes is an ace at keeping her expectations high no matter what.
“She is a mentor, friend and role model,” says Alexandria Seay, a former member of the dance team Hayes coached after school from 2006 to June 2008. “After overcoming cancer, she truly lights up a room when she enters.”
A native of Hazelwood, Hayes grew up determined to be a professional dancer.
After nabbing performances for The Muny at age 8 and dancing for the St. Louis Steamers soccer team from age 9 through 11, she set her sights on Broadway. Working two jobs since the age of 18 and not taking a single summer off, Hayes cut her teeth doing featured dance roles for the Black Rep and That Uppity Theatre Company. In 2003, she traveled back and forth to New York City, taking tap, jazz, and Dunham at the Alvin Ailey studio, and balancing auditioning, bartending, and substitute teaching.
But by 30, she outgrew her Broadway goals, and at the same time Hayes kept getting compliments about the management of the classes she subbed for. Soon, she decided to use her skills to wowing a different crowd – a budding generation of middle-schoolers in serious need of communication skills.
“The transition was smooth,” Hayes says of her glide from dance force to communication arts teacher.
Hayes excels at differentiating the teaching experience so kids can learn better and enjoy learning. Bright and tough-loving, Hayes doesn’t shirk on the in-class assignments, is quick to pull you aside and talk, and likes to play music and let the students dance.
In essence, Hayes leads comprehensively with knowledge, practice, and spirit. Instead of compartmentalizing a child’s learning, she assesses their whole being – that is, their need for regiment and relationship. The first day of school, she tells the students who she is, where she comes from, and builds those ties of respect and understanding.
Hayes then goes out of her way to find interesting reads such as Langston Hughes’ “Thank You Ma’Am,” and actively probes the literature through their literary, historical, and contemporary backdrops.
“I want my students to know what was going on then,” Hayes says. “At this age group, it’s hard for them to see there was a world in existence before they got here. They need to appreciate the people who lost their lives for them to get here.”
In 2007, Hayes began pursuing her master’s in teaching from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri, in addition to teaching full time.
A few weeks before graduation in 2009, she was diagnosed with stage four glandular induced cervical cancer, which started in the glands of her uterus and spread to her cervix.
Five days after crossing the stage, Hayes underwent a life-saving surgery, all the while leaving lesson plans on her desk for a sub to follow. “I am most proud of the fact that I’m a cancer survivor,” she says.
Despite battling low blood pressure and hormonal changes after her surgery, Hayes earned her second master’s, making her an education reading specialist in 2010, and is eyeing a doctorate in curriculum and instruction to further discover new ways to engage the many different learning styles of students. Now more than ever, Hayes leads her classroom and life knowing tomorrow is not promised, and every day is a new license to do better.
Like many teachers across America, Hayes faces an uphill battle against students’ shortening attention spans and digital info overload. When confronted with one particular student with attention deficit disorder who struggled to read by himself, Hayes introduced the audio book and discovered the student required verbal stimuli to activate his thought process.
“I don’t care what that child did yesterday, I don’t care what the child did last year,” Hayes says. “Every day is a new day with that child.”
