Q&A with Tangier S. Washington: Building Bonds Beyond the Classroom

This story is the third in a series of profiles about Camden students turned educators. This series is sponsored by the Camden Education Fund.

Meet Tangier S. Washington, 6th grade team leader at Camden’s Promise Charter School. A decade ago, she became her school’s first former student to return as a teacher.

Tangier says her upbringing in the city’s Fairview section and her student-experience at Camden’s Promise helped shape her enthusiasm to make real connections with youngsters — lasting bonds that go beyond classrooms and curriculum.

Her passion for teaching? For that, Tangier credits lessons learned from her mother, Dawn Washington-Chase, a veteran teacher at the H.B. Wilson School.

Her mom enrolled her “on a whim” at Camden’s Promise as a 6th grader after she attended H.B Wilson School from 1st–4th grades and 5th grade at Morgan Village Academy.

Tangier landed a job teaching math at Camden’s Promise about a year after earning her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Rowan University.

Today, Tangier, 34 and herself a mother, is engaged to be married and lives in Sicklerville with her sons Kyler, 11 and Karter, 6.  Here, in her own words, is Tangier Washington’s journey from a Camden’s Promise student to one of its educators.

Q: Who most inspired you to become a teacher?
I am lucky to have many people who inspired me, and still inspire me, to teach. My greatest inspiration is my mother, Dawn Washington-Chase. She too is an educator in the City of Camden, now teaching 7th grade at the H.B. Wilson School.

I watched how much she loves what she does for many years, making a meaningful impact in her students’ lives. My mother is my first teacher. It is her love for education that helped guide me into this field.

It wasn’t until I got to Camden’s Promise that knew teaching was the career for me. My mother signed me up for Camden’s Promise on a whim after a conversation with one of our neighbors.  At Camden's Promise, I really felt like I had teachers who genuinely cared about me (and) believed in me. They helped build my confidence in the classroom and brought out the best in me. It is a culmination of these positive experiences that led me to become an educator.