BY MILES LAYTON

God listens!

In recent weeks, I’ve been considering teaching as a profession to support my community journalism habit until the Albemarle Observer becomes as big as Joe Rogan’s podcast.  

When praying about this, I asked God for guidance and to perhaps send me to a good teacher, maybe one who is new to teaching.   

That He did – God sent me to Lexsene Beasley, who was recently named as Edenton-Chowan School District’s Beginning Teacher of the Year for 2024-25.

“Alright Bulldogs & Bulldog Nation we want y’all to join CMS in celebrating, our very own, Mrs. Lexsene Beasley!” Chowan Middle School posted to social media. “She has been awarded the 2024-2025 Beginning Teacher of the Year for the entire ECPS District!  We had a cafeteria full of 7th graders waiting to celebrate her! She is innovative in her teaching methods; finding ways to make historical events come to life, creative projects and thought provoking assignments. Not only has she impacted our students, but her fellow co-workers as well! All of us at CMS are so very proud of you. CONGRATULATIONS!”

Since Beasley is a talented educator but relatively new to teaching, her words hold double weight with this aspiring teacher.

Beasley grew up in Chowan County – attending Chowan Middle School and graduating from John A. Holmes High School. Think about that – Beasley teaches in the same school where she was a student.  

Before Beasley’s time as a teacher, she earned a degree in social work from Elizabeth City State University. She worked in the mental health field serving the juvenile population through Methodist Home for Children where she was a supervisor, leading staff that worked with children in school, group homes and adults. Later in life, before teaching seventh grade social studies, Beasley was a teaching assistant slash/bus driver for more than a decade. 

Now in her third year of teaching at Chowan Middle, Beasley, 57, said she is many things to her students.  

“It is an awesome job. I look forward to coming here every day to meet and greet the children,” she said. “I’m not only a teacher, I’m a mother, some days I’m their friend, some days I’m their partner some days — whatever role that I have to play to make Chowan Middle School great, that’s what I do.”   

Beasley’s lesson plans are excellent because rather than teaching through boring lectures, they immerse the student in history. Thursday, students were learning about four absolutist monarchs.  

Last quarter, a group of Beasley’s 7th grade students conducted an impeachment trial into the activities of Richard Nixon when he was serving as the 37th President of the United States. There were kids who served as prosecutors and defense attorneys who made their case as they presented their evidence to a jury. 

“I like when the children can engage in what we are teaching like when we did the Watergate trial,” Beasley said.  

The Prosecution – led by a future attorney named Joseph Layton – made an impassioned, well-reasoned argument that Nixon knew what he was doing so he should be convicted.

“I learned a lot and had a lot of fun in Mrs. Beasley’s class,” Layton said. “Nixon should’ve been impeached – he was guilty!” 

Of course, if instead of swimming at the beach or playing video games this past summer as any normal kid does, Joseph would’ve read Jonathan Aitken’s biography “Nixon” like his father (me) did this summer, he wouldn’t have been so quick to pounce on the President and rally the jury to a conviction.

To be fair, though the President’s 7th grade defense team did an excellent job, they had a rough row to hoe because of the Nixon hating mainstream media, who shaped history’s narrative. Nixon became one of the first victims of the Deep State, but that’s more of a topic for a college class discussing whether history repeats itself than a group of middle schoolers who are learning about Watergate for the first time.

Back to Beasley’s 7th grade class — the kids enjoyed the lesson about Watergate – an experience that made them embrace history.   

“They loved  it – I know they did,” Beasley said. “They had an opportunity to actually put themselves in that situation right then and act as if they were right there in court. And they just loved that. And what I do, I try to find and engage in activities where they actually can put themselves in that time period. And they can function as kings, queens, judges, presidents. I do it every, every week we do something different.”  

What’s Beasley’s favorite time period in history? 

“I enjoy the Harlem Renaissance, the migration from the South to the North when you begin to see African-Americans really implementing in the United States — you begin to see changes within a culture of people from, you’re talking about over 400 years of slavery.”

Natural question from an aspiring teacher to a new teacher — what gets you out of bed in the morning to teach? 

“Oh, that’s natural,” Beasely said. “I thank God for waking me up every morning. I get up, I get ready and I get started.” 

Mrs. Beasley, congratulations and thanks for the inspiration!  

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