When teacher Tracy Martin told her father that, after four years of college, she wanted to change her major and become a teacher, he apparently wasn’t thrilled.

“My dad was livid,” she laughed. “The whole plan was that I would come home to work for my father’s business.”

But after taking extra math classes to prepare for a master’s degree in economics, Martin realized her career path needed to head in a different direction.

It was a road worth taking. Last month, Martin was named high school teacher of the year by the London-Laurel County Chamber of Commerce.

On Wednesday, she was in her South Laurel High School classroom working with her students. She wrote five numbers on the board and then circled a sum. Students needed to manipulate the numbers to get to the shown sum.

As students thoughtfully raised their hands, there wasn’t the feeling of tension so commonly felt in math class. Instead, students were happily coming up with answers while Martin wrote them down.

Martin often lets her students play this numbers puzzle game after their work is finished for the day.

“They love it,” she said. “Some of them will come up with the most creative answers.”

Martin, 30, loves it too. She has loved math ever since she was a student herself at South Laurel High School.

“I loved it,” she said. “But my friends hated it.”

In turn, Martin became their informal tutor.

“Because I was always helping my friends in high school, I know all the mistakes (my students) are going to make,” she said. “I assume they’re going to make them before they even make them.”

Martin said she approaches correcting those errors carefully.

“You can never assume it’s a stupid mistake,” she said. “They’ve been taught something and it’s been embedded in their brain. They think something is true. If you come at them with a negative approach, they’ll never listen.”

To help, Martin said she constantly roams the aisles while her students are working. She also gives incentives for good work. Rewards for doing well on the numbers game can range from a getting a piece of candy to a homework pass for the evening.

“A homework pass to them is everything,” she said.

Martin has been a teacher for the past six years, five of which have been spent at her alma mater. Teaching where she once when to school has been an interesting experience. Not only are her former teachers now her colleagues, she said she never knows what will turn up when.

“They just found a pageant video last week from 1995 and were showing it in a class,” she laughed. “The kids have really given me a hard time.”

Martin said she never planned on returning home to Laurel County. Following her graduation at Eastern Kentucky University in 2002, she took a job in Richmond.

“I never wanted to come back to London,” she said. “I had really been praying for the Lord to show me where he wanted me. A position opened here, but I still didn’t think that’s what the Lord wanted me to do. Then, in about two weeks, all my mentors got jobs in other places. I had no reason to stay there anymore.”

Martin said it’s one of the best moves she’s ever made. And she’s glad that, eight years ago, she redirected her career path.

Her days, she said, are filled with constant gratification.

“The best thing about being a teacher really has nothing to do with math,” she said. “It’s seeing your really, really quiet students laugh or smile in class. Having a student run in and be so excited about their ACT scores and they’re so excited to tell you. When students tell you they’ve been accepted to college. Just when they tell you any detail of their life they want to share with you. That’s when you know you’re making a difference.”