Ashley Barefoot is a gifted education teacher at Longleaf Elementary in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She fosters students’ curiosity by facilitating discovery opportunities and teaching them the skills needed to become lifelong learners and changemakers.

Barefoot teaches in her hometown and wants to broaden students’ horizons. In college, she studied in England for a year and backpacked across Europe for two summers. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Southern Mississippi, she served as a member of AmeriCorps VISTA in an afterschool program, where she fell in love with teaching. She pursued a master’s degree in elementary education from William Carey University and earned National Board Certification.

As a National Endowment for the Humanities Landmarks Scholar, Barefoot studied literature, Native American history, social structure and civil rights in Massachusetts, Colorado, New York and Mississippi. She analyzed environmentalism with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in Colorado, served as an Earthwatch Teach Earth fellow in Costa Rica and backpacked with the National Outdoor Leadership School in Washington.

Barefoot has led professional development at statewide workshops in gifted education and for Teaching with Primary Sources and served as an online course facilitator for the Right Question Institute. Learning alongside experts who are passionate about their work inspires

her to bring that same sense of discovery and dedication to her students. Together, they have learned how to solve Rubik’s Cubes, code computer programs, read and write in Braille and conduct schoolwide service projects honoring veterans and military-connected families.