Helen’s passion for teaching started at a very young age. When she was younger she always wanted to be a teacher.

“I was in the 4th grade and  I had a really good 4th grade teacher. She would take us to the Park and read Charlotte’s Web and do all kinds of fun projects with us. At home I would help my brothers and sisters with their homework, even my older sister. I always liked that and I felt I wanted to be a teacher one day,” said Bradley.

Helen went to college at a few places over the years to get her degree in education. Helen attended West Liberty and Marshall. Helen also took some classes at WVU and Northern Community college.

After sometime, Helen became a ESL teacher and taught children that weren’t from here. It was a big challenge.

“I think the biggest challenge was when I became an Esl teacher with no sort of training. I started teaching esl and I had students from china, Spain, Italy, Uzbekistan, all over the place! So I had to adapt to the person, the grade level, the english level, and the english barrier, A lot of them didn’t speak very much English at all. I think that was the  biggest challenge and just adapting to the students’ situations,” said Bradley. 

As a teacher, Helen tried her best to do fun activities with the students.

“You always feel like you’re making a difference with students, you always hope to do that. Sometimes you don’t realize it until later on in life when they come back to you and say ‘I really love when we used to do all those fun projects!’. Like when we’ve made a special project or something, kids would always say I really love your class,” said Bradley.

Helen has had over 15 years of teaching experience in Ohio County. The most recent spot she has taught at was Middle Creek Elementary. All though she retired in 2019, Helen owns a tutoring business called “The Idea Center”.