Henrico's Top Teachers – Heather Dedie, Holman Middle School, family and consumer science

Sometimes, middle school can be a zoo, and Heather Dedie can feel like the zookeeper.

But amidst all the chaos, the 13-year veteran teacher recognizes the loving relationships she has cultivated with her students and the trust they have in her.

“No child is unteachable, there’s good in everybody, and you just have to work a little bit harder sometimes if some kids are standoffish or want to be disruptive,” Dedie said. “You have to have the patience and give the kids love. Most of them just need to know that someone cares about them.”

Dedie, who teaches family and consumer science at Holman Middle School, wanted to become a teacher when she first started at Virginia Commonwealth University as a science major. But after taking her first teaching intro course, Dedie found the job too daunting – bad student behaviors and managing parent relationships seemed overwhelming for the college freshmen.

So after graduating college, Dedie went straight into the science field, taking jobs at the United Network for Organ Sharing and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But despite the intellectual fulfillment, Dedie felt that something was missing – the tenderness of human connection.

“It wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to engage with younger people and pass on knowledge and help them understand and learn new stuff,” she said. “I missed the connection with other people.”

Now, after teaching science for six years at Holman and family and consumer science (what used to be called “home ec”) for seven years, Dedie has realized that sometimes the emotional connections she makes with students can be more lasting and more significant than the coursework she is teaching.

“The work of getting to know people and building relationships is sometimes more important than the content you’re trying to teach,” she said. “Maybe a kid only learns one thing from your class, but if you build a relationship with them, that’s more impactful than being able to have them excel and get an A in the course.”

But Dedie finds that her students are often able to easily connect with the content she teaches. In her class, students learn skills that they will use every day for the rest of their lives – budgeting money, taking care of children, cooking meals – and students usually recognize that relevance. 

Dedie has her students create their own recipes (often cooking from scratch), take on fake jobs that they have to budget for, sew their own clothes, and take home baby simulators that require feeding, rocking, burping, and diaper changes.

The best moments are when students suddenly realize what they have made all by themselves – a meal by scratch or their own handmade pajama pants - and are thrilled by what they have accomplished and their sense of ownership, Dedie said.

“The astonishment on their face is pretty great. When they finish their pajama pants and they put them on and they’re so impressed that they made clothes that they can actually wear. Or when they cook something and they’re like, ‘I want to take this home to my mom!’” Dedie said. “Sometimes they don’t even realize all of the things that they’ve learned, that they’ve become little experts and are able to help one another.”

Dedie also looks forward to the one day at the end of each year when her past students, now high school seniors, return to Holman Middle for their “Senior Walk” down memory lane.

“The kids come running over to give me hugs and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I miss you! You were so important,’” she said. “And they just talk about the things that they’ve done or all the things that they learned in the class that they were able to use, or pieces they never forgot. A lot of students keep in contact with me and I just love to get little updates from them on how they’re doing in life.”

The life lessons Dedie teaches go beyond just the content of her class, one nominator said. She teaches students how to be confident in themselves and models kindness and positivity.

“Mrs. Dedie makes such a huge impact on students’ lives. I remember my first day of eighth grade, I was super nervous and scared. As soon as I walked in Mrs. Dedie’s room, she gave me a big hug and welcomed me into her space with open arms,” one wrote. “Sometimes I feel like I am no longer her student, that I am her child. She has made my school year so much brighter.”

Dedie hopes that as her students go off to high school, and the world after high school, that they keep their heads up even when life gets hard. That through the hardships of debt, illness, crying babies, they keep pushing through with the knowledge they learned from her.

“Life is hard sometimes and it’s unfair, but you have to keep pursuing, sometimes find different routes, and remain positive,” Dedie said. “You can’t give up on yourself. Life sometimes gives you obstacles, but you just have to stay determined.”

Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s government and education reporter. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.