Cindy Moss tells her students she doesn’t want to become refrigerator hum. You know, that annoying drone you eventually tune out.

There’s little worry of that.

The high school biology teacher has touched thousands of lives, inspiring at-risk students to shun their disadvantages and earn their way into college. She’s proven to dubious colleagues at her Charlotte high school that it’s possible to excite teenagers about science. And she’s so impressed the state with her vigor, she’s been tapped to help rewrite North Carolina’s biology curriculum.

Along the way, Moss has collected a myriad of awards in her 20 years in the classroom, including what some call the “Oscar of Teaching,” a Milken Award worth $25,000. Such honors, though, are just icing to Moss.

“So many people don’t know how to deal with teenagers, I feel like I have a lot of power to affect children’s lives,” Moss says. “Every day is different with kids. You never know what’s going to happen.”

When Moss attended UNC as a Morehead, this small town girl thought she’d like to be a doctor. But the scholarship’s summer internships opened her to new possibilities. Working with police in Tennessee, Moss spent time with down-and-out prisoners and learned that these men needed hope — something she works hard to instill in her students today.

“Those summers were really my education,” Moss says.

Moss left a more lucrative career in sales to enter teaching. She uses unique strategies to get through to her kids — singing songs, acting out plays, drawing pictures. All the things we loved to do when we were little kids.

The curious technique clearly has worked. The evidence?

Since Moss started teaching in Charlotte five years ago, three of her students have gone on to become Moreheads.

And nobody thinks she’s refrigerator hum.

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