LPS teacher ‘not a quitter’

T.J. Williams is not a quitter. Just ask her kindergarten students at Whittier Elementary School.

Williams had always wanted to be a teacher, but felt as if the goal was unattainable due to a learning disability. So she pursued a different path. Instead of the teaching degree she hoped to earn, her college adviser steered her toward business, where she earned a degree in finance.

“He didn’t want me to spend 4-5 years in college and then not pass the (teacher) test,” she said.

After earning her college degree, she became director of finance at Southwestern Oklahoma State University’s Sayre campus before a church in Clinton hired her to be its financial secretary. Then came a stint as a house parent in Houston.

Finally, she and her husband landed in Lawton, where she applied for a secretary’s job in 2022 at Whittier Elementary School. She was hired and did double duty as secretary and financial secretary.

“The need and desire for teaching kicked back in,” she said of being in an education environment.

Although she desperately wanted to become a teacher, there was still the learning disability.

“In fifth grade, they discovered I had dyslexia,” she said. “I had to go back and learn to read.”

Williams said she was pulled out of most of her classes from fifth grade until high school, when she was mainstreamed. Although reading was difficult for her, numbers were not, which made a career in finance attainable.

While she had the desire to become a teacher, she was afraid she would fail the state teaching test. She told her principal, Brenda Walker, of her desire, and her fears. Williams agreed to give it a try, but told Walker that she probably would only teach for three years under the state’s emergency certification program.

“She was resigned to going back to being a secretary,” Walker said.

Over the summer of 2022, Williams took home books to study for the teaching test.

“I took every book she gave me,” Williams said. “I spent hours and days reading what I could.”

She even got her husband, an assistant principal at MacArthur Middle School, to help her during the summer because she is a slow reader.

“He would read the material to me,” she said. “He would say, ‘I’ve already read this’ and I would say, ‘Read it again’.”

Once the studying was over, it was time to take the test.

“I bawled the whole morning of the test,” she said. “I never realized how much I had test anxiety. That morning I had to wipe the tears from my eyes to take the test.”

When she finished the test, she still had time left. She just knew she had failed, she said.

“I’ve never passed a test the first time,” she said.

But this time was different; she passed on her first try.

“Every teacher I saw, I told,” she said.

Williams said she had always thought that if she could become a teacher, she would probably teach older kids. But once again she went down a different path. Instead of teaching older students, she started teaching kindergarten at Whittier in August 2023.

“Mrs. Walker thought this is where I would fit in best,” Williams said.

“She was thinking older kids, but the little ones really love her,” Walker said. “She just has a way about her. She has a gift for the littles.”

Walker said Williams excelled at calming students with behavioral issues when she was secretary.

“There is something about her presence,” Walker said. “When she talks to the littles, it is very respectful. She is always in business mode. She has an even, calm voice all the time.”

Once the test was passed, it was time to actually start teaching.

“The first week, I probably didn’t eat, I was so nervous,” Williams said.

Williams carries that attitude of not quitting into her classroom. She tells the story of a student who was struggling one day, and she was struggling also.

“At the end of the day, he came up to me and said, ‘You never quit.’ I’m never going to quit. He knew that,” she said. “They look for consistency. For some, you are the only safety net they have. That one kid knows someone never gave up on them.”

Williams didn’t give up on herself and she doesn’t give up on her students, even when they struggle to understand a new concept.

“I try to find a way to show them the same thing in a different way,” she said. “I think I do that sooner (than other teachers). I think of different ways that have helped me. I tell the students to never stop trying. Just try. It’s not about the mistakes, it’s about the trying. I try to figure out why they are frustrated, what is really going on here. I can remember that it was easier to look bad than to look dumb. I try to change their attitudes. We are all good at something. We don’t have to be good at everything. We work at the other stuff.”

Her hard work and “gift for the littles” was recognized when she was named First Class Teacher of the Year for 2024-25 in December at the LPS Celebration.

Although she had planned on teaching older students, now she can’t imagine teaching anyone except kindergarteners.

“They have only been on the earth for 5-6 years. I don’t think I could pick another grade,” she said. “Life takes you at the time you are supposed to be.”