COLUMBIA, S.C. — Our next News19 Teacher of the Week went from the convent to the classroom. Mrs. Ebanreb David is a chemistry teacher at Eau Claire High School in Richland School District One.
“My goal was to travel the world through teaching. I thought this is my first major travel, and it will set more opportunities for me to travel to other continents through teaching,” says David.
Mrs. David was born in the Philippines. She moved to the United States seven years ago to teach. But before she moved, she was a member of a congregation of educators for 10 years whose purpose was educating the young.
“It's just like devoting all your life to the education of the young. That's all I wanted to do before,” says David. "I was lucky to be with this group of educators in our country... Their charism really is intentionally for the education of the young. So they would provide everything to make sure that the young are successful.”
Mrs. David comes from a family of teachers. She is one of five sisters. Four of her sisters are educators. One of them is a middle school teacher in Sumter County School District.
“Now we are trying to influence the other one, who is a preschool teacher, to come here,” says David.
Since moving to the United States, Mrs. David landed a teacher job at Eau Claire High School where she is teaching chemistry to juniors.
“We're making connections now because of how well she explains stuff and how well she guides our lessons. I've never before had a science class where I can read information, process it, and make my own connections,” says student Jaida Felder-Whetstone.
"Not only does she make it really easy to learn science, but she also is helping me in my other classes with my presentations and how loud I can talk and how well I can project my voice and things like that. Which I really enjoy,” says student Aiyana Brown. "Not only is she a good teacher, whenever she teaches us these topics, she makes sure that it's easy to understand and easily digestible. But she also makes it very fun."
Mrs. David is married and has a three-year-old daughter. She says her priorities continue to be family and education.
“My personal goal, and our motto with those group of educators, is called 'Da mihi animas, caetera tolle,' which is translated as, 'Give me souls. Take away the rest,' meaning, as a teacher, take away the literal rest and use all your time, effort, talent, to do everything for the young,” says David.
But teaching isn’t her only passion. She always wanted to be a documentarian and travel the world. But she says her priorities right now are focusing on her family and her students' success.
If you know a teacher like Mrs. David who deserves to be recognized for their hard work in the classroom you can nominate them by emailing us at TOW@WLTX.COM. Tell us what that educator is doing every day to go above and beyond in the classroom.
