When a student arrives at Escambia Acceleration Academies wondering how they can fit in, English content coach Laura Muehl can relate.
“Ironically, I didn’t like school,” she says. “But I had an art teacher who saw potential in me even when I couldn’t see it. She consistently encouraged and pushed me out of my comfort zone and ultimately inspired me to become a teacher.”
Muehl works hard to become that kind of teacher for ECAA’s graduation candidates, helping them to build self-confidence and find their voices. And in what better subject than English language arts?
She frequently runs across plagiarism, instances in which a young learner copies someone else’s words rather than having the self-confidence to write their own. She tries to relate what might seem like esoteric literary topics to areas in which the students have an interest, such as video games or anime — then encourage them to share their genuine insights.
“I want to see what your unique words are,” she tells them.
While her art teacher’s encouragement helped Muehl make her way through high school, once she emerged, she wasn’t sure college was for her. She joined the U.S. Air Force, serving first as an airfield systems technician and, later, as a photojournalist chronicling military life.
During that time, her interest in college grew. The MIchigan native used the GI Bill to help finance a bachelor’s degree in media communications and a master’s in teaching English as a second language.
For five years, she taught her native tongue in Thailand, Nepal and China. When the Covid pandemic hit, she returned to America and took a position at a school for at-risk youths. When ECAA opened last year, she took the English coaching job and has been getting stellar reviews from learners and colleagues alike.
Muehl loves working with young people who’ve faced significant adversity, including ones who felt cast aside in other settings. One young man recently told her, “I’ve been kicked out of so many schools, I was just waiting to get kicked out here.”
But he wasn’t, Muehl says. Instead, he’s finding success in course after course and is happily on track to earn his diploma.
“They come in with an attitude problem and I love to watch them because it’s a total transformation,” she says. “It’s similar to what I realized about myself — They realize, ‘Oh, I can do this.’ ”