When I thought back on those teachers who had inspired me, I realized that I wanted to be able to do the same for others, instilling in them a love of mathematics.”
Emily’s Story
When Emily Kennedy Farrar was a child, her older sister turned their basement into a summer camp for neighborhood kids with plays and fun science experiments. “I developed an overall love of learning that has stayed with me.” And, with three of her grandparents in education, she “always had a pretty severe case of the teaching bug.” Emily’s appreciation of mathematics began early and was reinforced by her eleventh grade analysis teacher. Emily realized “that math could be used not only for finding solutions to quadratic equations, but for helping win a car on a game show.”
Initially an architecture major at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emily decided after a year “that sitting at a drafting table wasn’t for me; teaching was.” She received her BS in applied math from the Georgia Institute of Technology and went on to earn a MEd in mathematics education from the University of Georgia.
Emily was awarded Teacher of the Year twice: in 2009 at Alpharetta High School, and in 2018 at Roswell High School. She received these awards partly for helping integrate new standards and innovative teaching strategies into the curriculum for students at all levels. She taught everything from remedial algebra to AP Calculus, and says she enjoyed the challenges and rewards of teaching a wide variety of students. Together with Knowles Fellow Arielle Pool Alford, she disseminated ideas for differentiation in instruction and assessment at conferences and teacher institutes in her area.
Emily left the classroom in 2020 and now works in mathematics assessment. Her favorite part of her role is the time she gets to spend with committees of teachers, whose guidance and expertise drives every aspect of her work.