Worrel named IRHS Teacher of the Year
Let’s see – ninth-grade English… There’s Shakespeare, Dickens, “The Odyssey,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” — all classic texts that somehow are supposed to relate to present-day 14- and 15-year-olds. And, magically – and in part because of teachers such as Indian River High School’s Teacher of the Year, Marjorie Worrell – they do.
Coastal Point • Monica Scott
Marjorie Worrell, an Indian River High School English teacher, recieved Teacher of the Year award from the high school.
“The kids make me laugh,” said Worrell. “I forget how old I am. They don’t treat me like the senior citizen that I am. They still make me excited about what I am teaching.”
She said much of ninth grade is finding a connection to the classics to everyday life, using critical reading and symbolism.
“They are reading things they don’t think they can read,” she explained. “It’s neat to see the students get excited too.”
Worrell, who spent summers in Lewes as a teenager, enjoyed a long career in Pennsylvania for 32 years before retiring to the beach area full-time. She has been teaching ninth grade the whole time and currently teaches ninth grade at Indian River High School in Frankford.
She said she feels right at home in the laid-back rural setting of Indian River after her career in Delaware County.
“Indian River High School is the best place I ever taught,” she explained. “I fell into this job two weeks before school started, and Mark Steele and the administration are wonderful. It’s like no other place. It’s like a big family.”
She said that when her mother was very sick, Steele and her students helped get her through it.
“He said he didn’t want to have anybody working for him that didn’t think about family first, and that filters down,” Worrell noted, adding that she had never worked for anyone like that before.
“I could end my career here and couldn’t ask for a better position,” she emphasized, saying it is an honor to be recognized as Teacher of the Year in a position and school that she loves.
Worrell was the class advisor for the class of 2008, is on the Vision 2015 leadership committee and is co-chair of the English Department.
The Indian River School District will pick its District Teacher of the Year later this month, and the person chosen will be eligible for the state Teacher of the Year award, to be announced later this year.
