As a child growing up in the small South Carolina town of Salley, Joseph Bell would pretend he was a teacher. He had an uncle and cousins who were teachers and college professors. He says he was born to be a teacher, but his path to becoming one was not traditional.
Bell, an advanced academic programs (AAP) teacher at Pine Grove Elementary School, is Richland One’s 2024-2025 Teacher of the Year.
He began working with students right out of high school. He started his educational career by working at child development centers for six years. While he was a pre-kindergarten teacher at the Center for Learning in Columbia, Bell says he had a chance encounter with a parent who worked as a school counselor in Richland One.
“I told her I was ready for something different. She told me there was a long-term substitute position open. She went back to her principal and told him about me. The next day, the principal gave me a call and asked if I wanted to tour the school. When I went there, I felt like Richland One was the place I needed to be at. It was a sign,” he said.
Bell started his Richland One career in 2019 as a long-term substitute teacher at Arden Elementary School. After getting his bachelor’s degree from Western Governors University in 2021 and his teaching certification seven months after graduating, Bell became a third-grade teacher at Pine Grove Elementary in the 2022-2023 school year. Last year, he followed his third-grade class to fourth grade. This year, Bell is teaching 24 second-grade AAP students.
“I love challenges and I love trying different things. I feel like going into second grade will broaden who I am,” he said.
Bell says his favorite part about being a teacher is when his students say that he taught them something new, like solving a math problem. He says some students have even taught their parents the methods Bell taught them.
“Being able to hear that the students are telling their parents what I taught them shows that I’m doing something positive. The students enjoy what I’m teaching so much, they go home and talk about,” said Bell.
He says he also enjoys thinking outside of the box for his lessons. Last school year, Bell had his fourth-grade students split up into groups to create podcast episodes about
different English language arts (ELA) strategies.
“The students were able to share the episodes with our fourth-grade team at Pine Grove and the entire school,” he said.
Bell has also been instrumental in making sure all Pine Grove students have role models they can look up to, especially males. For two years, Bell has organized the school’s “Real Men Read” event, which allows male volunteers from the community to read to students.
“People like our superintendent [Dr. Craig Witherspoon] are people our students can call their mentors, even though they only met them one time. One of the things I’ve noticed with our students is that they don’t see a lot of males, especially in elementary education. Bringing in positive influences, besides the three male teachers they see every day, is great,” he said.
Bell is also an advisor for Pine Grove’s male mentoring program, the Premier Pandas. The program teaches male students in third, fourth and fifth grades how to be positive role models in their community. Lessons the students learn include how to dress, how to behave during events at school and outside of school, and how to handle anger issues, something Bell says males tend to struggle with.
“They don’t know how to handle issues without fighting or arguing. I’m able to teach these boys strategies on how to walk away, talk to someone, write it out and get their feelings out,” said Bell.
He says he wants to be the person his students can confide in and have a good time with, as long as their grades are where they need to be and they’re on track with their lessons. Bell says some of his students even think he’s one of them.
“My students don’t ever feel like I’m just a teacher. I’m outside throwing a football with my students. Some of the girls want me to play hopscotch with them. I do those things because I want them to feel like I’m more than a teacher,” he said.
Bell is also getting his foot in the door in educational leadership this school year. He is the second-grade team lead teacher at Pine Grove and he will be getting his master’s degree in education administration from the University of South Carolina in December. Bell says his administrators and fellow staff members at Pine Grove have been very supportive of him throughout his educational journey.
“We’re almost like a family at Pine Grove. We laugh and we have a good time, but at the end of the day, we work hard. We make sure that our kids get everything that they need. It’s not a oneperson show. We all work together,” he said.
