Bleckley Teacher of the Year proves it’s never too late to pursue your passion

Bleckley County High School named algebra instructor Chong Cairney as the 2024-2025 teacher of the year. She was recognized at a board of education meeting at the end of January. 

The award recipient is decided after a vote among all of the school’s teachers. 

Cairney, who is almost 50 years old, only began teaching five years ago after she decided she wanted to pursue a career in education.

“My sister, she’s also in the education field, she told me one time … ‘You know what? When you explain something, it all makes sense,’” she said. “I like that moment when I tell somebody something, and then (they say), ‘Oh, that’s it!’”

Originally from South Korea, Cairney and her family ended up in Cochran after her husband got a job at Middle Georgia State University (MGA) teaching English in 2008. Two of her four children were born in Turkey. All of her children have attended Bleckley County Schools.

Her family pushed her to keep going once she decided she had an interest in getting her master’s in teaching. 

“(My kids) pushed me to do it,” she said. “We studied together. I asked them questions, and then they helped me.”

Her husband also played a large role in encouraging her to teach. She would sometimes doubt herself and admit to him that she was scared and didn’t think she could do it.

He told her, “Don’t be scared yet. You didn’t try.”

In order to start her master’s at MGA, she was required to take the SAT. 

“(I was a) 45-year-old woman there with all high school kids to take an SAT,” she said. “One girl came to me, and she said, ‘Um, ma’am, can I ask you one question? … Is this your first time?’ I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ And she said, ‘Oh, then good luck to you!’ and that was really sweet.”

Cairney brings the lessons she learned from her journey becoming a teacher later than usual to her students. She wants them to know that it is never too late. 

Still, just like any other teacher, she sometimes faces challenges in the classroom. Recently, she explained, she gave a quiz to her students, but the grades were not what she expected. While worrying about what she was going to do to “fix it,” she remembered something that happened when her first child was 1 year old. 

Cairney was with friends who had children the same age, and she noticed that they weren’t wearing diapers anymore. Immediately, she worried that she had done something wrong as a parent because her son was still wearing diapers. 

“One of my friends said, ‘Why are you worried about it? … Nobody gets married with diapers on.’ And it just hit me,” she said. She realized that pushing her child to be ready wouldn’t work, and she needed to be patient. 

It wasn’t her class’s mistake for making lower-than-usual grades, she said. She was going to give them time and work with them step-by-step to be sure they understand the concepts.

“We’re gonna do it again,” she said. “They’re going to get it sometime … and if their ‘sometime’ is not in high school, that’s also okay.”

Sure enough, she said, her son is now 23, and “nobody’s wearing diapers” despite the fact that she was so worried at the time. 

“Parenting and teaching is the same thing,” she said. “We don’t understand why they didn’t do it or why they couldn’t do it. There probably is a reason … It was a funny story (about diapers), but it reminds me all the time, ‘Okay, let’s wait. Let’s not push them.’ That helps me a lot.”

That lesson pays off, including recently, when she went back to re-teach the material from the quiz. 

“In today’s lesson, we got it.”