When you’re only a teenager, spending 25 years doing anything seems like an eternity. It’s hard to imagine doing something for longer than you have been alive. However, English teacher Marci Guthrie has spent all that time teaching. A collaborative teacher in the Special Education Department, Guthrie is currently teaching freshmen and seniors. She decided to study Special Education in college after watching how much her brother struggled with dyslexia in school.

“I wanted to help students with disabilities feel confident, learn to be successful, and understand that they have a learning difference instead of a disability, and that with guidance and hard work they can overcome any challenges and still do whatever they want to do in the future,” said Guthrie.

After attending high school in Indianapolis, Indiana, she went to Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where she majored in Special Education K-12.

“Helping students with disabilities or differences brings me happiness and joy, especially when I see students’ eyes light up when they know they are successful and are finally understanding a difficult skill,” she said.

Since then, she has taught in elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools across the country. She taught at Snider High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, before moving to Virginia for the first time in 2001. She and her husband then lived in Fluvanna, where she taught sixth and eighth graders at Fluvanna Middle School, for two years before they moved back to Indiana. They returned to Virginia in 2010.

“We decided to move back to our home state of Indiana in 2003 to be closer to family as we were raising our two young daughters at that time,” said Guthrie.

Being a teacher for over two decades means that Guthrie has seen almost everything in a classroom. She has also seen the adaptation of students’ learning styles as technology has become more prevalent. She says her two biggest challenges as a teacher are electronic devices and student apathy, when students don’t seem to care about their progress and education. She believes electronic devices are distracting for students.

“Creating different strategies for special education can sometimes be challenging. Still, it is important to implement this in the classroom when needed because many of our special needs students learn and see concepts differently. It is crucial that we as teachers learn to differentiate within our classrooms so that everyone can be successful and improve confidence with learning,” said Guthrie.

She believes there are a few aspects of being a special education teacher that may surprise students. These include the many hours of extra paperwork and reports that special education teachers have to do outside of the normal classroom, as well as the fact that they also have to create various strategies to help students who have different learning needs.

Outside of school, Guthrie has been married to her husband for almost 34 years. She has two grown and married daughters, both of whom graduated from FCHS, and seven grandchildren. She also has many hobbies for when she is not filling out the extra paperwork.

“My hobbies are pickleball, playing the piano, singing worship songs at Calvary Church, traveling to new places, reading, and decorating,” she said.

She has aspirations to someday travel to Europe, England, Scotland, and Ireland. She would like to explore these places on guided tours and stay in Airbnbs.

“I have ancestry roots in England, Scotland, Ireland, and France and always wanted to visit there,” said Guthrie.