By Amy Cockerham
Public Ed Works 

TARBORO (June 11, 2026) – Edgecombe County Teacher Owen Cole said it wasn’t until he started filling out his personal statement on a medical school application that he realized he didn’t want to be a doctor after all. 

“Went home and shadowed my AP biology teacher at my alma mater, and then just really enjoyed it and really thought, this is something that I could definitely see myself doing,” Cole said. “So, I applied for Teach for America, got in and then came to Tarboro.”

Teach for America is a two-year program supporting teachers entering the classroom from a nontraditional path. With a biology major, Cole now teaches chemistry, physics and biology at Tarboro High School.

He even earned the title of Beginning Teacher of the Year in Edgecombe County Public Schools last year.

“Each week [I] try and have at least one really like fun and engaging activity,” Cole said. “When we learn about the conservation of energy and physics … it’s a paper airplane competition to see who can make an airplane that flies the farthest.”

“When we talk about combustion reactions, I put alcohol in a five gallon jug and throw a match down in there, and the flame shoots out the top.”

Cole said teaching has not been without challenges.

“We don’t have a lot of funds just to have consistent teachers,” Cole said. “They’re cutting a math position, they might be cutting a social studies teacher position … it makes it more difficult because teachers … you have to teach more subjects, in addition to your classroom numbers tend to fluctuate.”

All while some teachers struggle to make ends meet.

“It can be challenging at times,” Cole said. “So, yes, I definitely think that if we can, advocating for teacher pay is definitely something that needs to continue.”

Cole plans to step away from teaching once he finishes the school year to attend graduate school at East Carolina University to earn a master’s degree in biology. He wants to continue to pursue his passion for learning.

“In terms of how that relates to teacher pay, that was a slight reason for possibly wanting to move and to consider industry and maybe looking at teaching at the community college or post-secondary level,” Cole said. 

Though Cole is leaving the school system, he’s planning to stay in Tarboro in the rural community he now calls home.

“The big thing that I’ve taken away from these two years is how important education is,” Cole said. “That’s definitely one of the things I took for granted growing up, and seeing all these different perspectives has made me realize that education is a lot more important. It can’t be a back thought. It needs to be something that is present on not just the minds of legislators, but everyone’s mind.”