AP and regular World History teacher Barbara Harper is out on long-term medical leave.

Taking Harper’s place for the rest of the semester is substitute teacher Mary Jo Norris, who graduated from Harding University with a BA in Social Science and has experience teaching.

“When I first got out of school, I taught high school for [seven] years in Tennessee and Mississippi,” Norris said. “Then I started back into teaching four years ago. I started teaching at the University of Phoenix at their campus here in Little Rock.”

Moving houses is not something new to Norris, who has lived in Tennessee, Mississippi, Washington, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arkansas and the country of England.

Norris is married with two sons and one daughter. Both of her sons attend Harding University, one a junior and the other a senior. Her daughter is an elementary school teacher in Jacksonville.

“I guess I’ve always just been fascinated with the stories of the people of the past. I grew up with a father who was interested in history and we would go to historical places for vacation, and being able to see, and not just read about it, helped peak my interest,” she said.

Now that Norris is an adult, she said she is able to travel more. She feeds her interest by learning how people live and learning how a country came to be, and she brings the knowledge that she has obtained from her travels to her classroom teaching, such as explaining the differences between life in England and life in America.

“Yeah, [I enjoy teaching]. I enjoy being with the kids and its just history,” Norris said.