We recently connected with Angela Benton and have shared our conversation below.

Angela , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

After being in education for 27 years and serving in various roles, there are many wonderful things about education. However, there are some things I would change that would improve the system. One of the first things I would change would be allowing students to be free thinkers. I believe teachers often tell students what to think and how to feel about topics, instead of allowing them to make discoveries and figure things out on their own. The educational system should promote more problem solving and less memorization of facts. When children are allowed to figure things out and make discoveries, they grow into adults who have the skills to think their way thru problems and situations. They will be better equipped to work with people and be more productive on jobs or even as a business owner.

I remember as a young adult and my mom making me figure out how I was going to be able to pay for college. Thinking back on that memory I thought my mother was being mean. In actuality she was making me think. She was making me figure things out instead of always running to her to solve my problems. So often we want to “fix” things for our children instead of making them do it for themselves.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

After teaching for over 25 years, I decided to retire and pursue my passion of writing. My first book “No Superhero Needed” was published in 2019. I was also a contributing author in the anthology “Embracing the Battle Tried by Fire” published in 2021. My passion for children and compassion for educators led me to write “Where in the World is Enzo? Enzo Goes to Savannah, Georgia”. This book sets the stage for children to develop a joy of reading, it encourages parents to be active participants in their children’s education and it is an educational support for teachers because it is aligned to Georgia’s Standards of Excellence.
An extension of the children’s book involves me visiting schools and bookstores, doing book readings and writing classes with students and teachers.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

The best advice I would have for managing a team is to remember …..you were not always the manager. That means, be the person in charge you wish you had when you had to be the player on the team. Also remember, the team is only as good as the leader. Good leaders lead from the back. Which means, they remember to keep the team first. Showing appreciation will get people to do almost anything.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn is, the people who you have helped will not always be the people who help you.

The backstory of that is as I was transitioning to a new profession after retirement, I thought that the people I supported without fail would be the first ones to support me. That was not the case. There have been lifelong people who have been there for me, but many of the people who I thought would be….simply were not.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.whereintheworldisenzo.com
• Instagram: whereintheworldis_enzo
• Facebook: where in the world is enzo?
• Linkedin: linktr.ee/angelatbenton