New Teacher Profile: Ja’Korey Walker

Ja’Korey Walker has quickly become a favorite new-student adviser. Walker helps students with his inherent charm and down-to-earth personality.

“I work with kids proactively to solve any student issues,” he said, “which is basically my responsibility here, to work with kids.”

Having come from Fate, Alabama, a small town of roughly five thousand, Walker has found the switch from a small rural area to the more reasonably-sized Iowa City to be overwhelming. He also finds that the transition is one of the biggest barriers to his new profession.

“Well, for me I would say coming to such a big school has been a real challenge for me,” he said. “[Especially] when I came from such a small school previously.”

Finding a strong sense of passion for his profession, Walker had previously been helping teens work through their struggles for four years as part of the juvenile justice system. To him, helping the students succeed in their high school careers is almost an obligation.

“I have a passion for [teaching] just because I had a lot of people help me when I was in high school,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of people going to school so I feel obligated to pay it back.”

With a hopeful personality, Walker has set goals for what he wants to accomplish and improve before the end of the year. Being a new face to many, he has made it his priority to meet all of the students of City High. He also hopes to become a more patient and pragmatic teacher, looking at problems from different angles instead of falling into a single pattern that may not be as effective for each student.

“One thing that I really want to learn this year is everybody’s name. There’s a lot of kids here so I want to learn all of their names. As far as teaching I want to be a lot more patient,” he said, “I will [also try] just using different approaches…I know I am able to do that, but sometimes I get stuck in my one approach and so I need to vary that with different kids.”

Despite the struggles of being a new teacher, Walker is happy to be here and can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has to offer.

“I have loved teaching so far,” Walker said. “I am just glad to be here at City High and I am looking forward to finishing out this year.”