Aiken’s Dr. John Bradley: It Took a Village
The notion of teacher villages, widely embraced by the education community in recent years, is a familiar concept to Dr. John Bradley, the newly elected vice-chairman of the Aiken County School District Board of Trustees, who lived in a teacherage during some of his formative years.
Between the ages of four and eight, his mother, a first and second grade public school teacher, taught in neighboring counties. Since daycare did not exist, school officials suggested his mother allow him to sit in her classroom as she taught.
“(I) was treated as if I was a student,” said Dr. Bradley. “My mother and I lived in a building with other teachers during the week and returned home on the weekend.”
He credits these experiences with establishing his belief in the importance of public education.
“I had a front row seat to the transition of southern rural children from persons who knew only that provided by their early experience on farms to a broader, richer, more exciting world and the beginning of an education that would expand our worlds and give us the tools necessary to negotiate that world,” Dr. Bradley said.
The psychologist never veered far from his humble beginnings in the lower part of Richland County as the only child of a public school teacher and a father who worked as a prison guard and administrator, eventually graduating from Eau Claire High School in Richland School District One (Richland One).
His father would give him second-hand accounts of his adventures in the brutal prison world and the biographies of some of the most notable criminals.
“This, I believe, was the genesis of my interest in understanding human behavior and its variations,” said Dr. Bradley.
Having often been the youngest in his class gave rise to Dr. Bradley’s desire to better understand the behavior of his older classmates.
“I frequently was not mature enough to understand why they did what they did, so I became a keen observer of the human experience in order to learn how to fit in,” he said.
His observations coupled with the efforts of a science teacher who helped him navigate his transition from rural South Carolina to the city school proved beneficial to Dr. Bradley.
“She taught me in a way that gave me confidence in myself and showed me how much a teacher can mean to a student trying to get a foothold in life,” he said. “Although she taught me science classes in high school, she was one of the best psychologists I have ever known.”
Dr. Bradley earned a bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of South Carolina. While working on his doctorate, Dr. Bradley worked at the South Carolina State Hospital for four years and the South Carolina Department of Corrections for one year before working as a school psychologist in Richland One.
“I saw working in schools was a better way to help people – identify the problem early and bring resources to bear before the problem became deep-rooted,” said Dr. Bradley.
He and his wife, Sally, (a former public school English teacher) eventually moved to Aiken where he was employed as the director of Special Programs, serving in various capacities as an assistant superintendent for the school district before retiring in 1990. He also worked as an adjunct professor for the University of South Carolina – Aiken.
A few years into retirement, Dr. Bradley ran for the school board and served 16 consecutive years, 13 of which he served as chairman. During this time, Dr. Bradley was working as the clinical psychologist in the Savannah River Site’s medical department, a position he held for 21 years in conjunction with a private practice.
Dr. Bradley left the board for 11 years before returning in 2019.
“(I) missed it. Following some problems that led to three of the board’s members resigning before their terms ended, I decided to run again and was elected,” said Dr. Bradley. “Being involved in education has become a way of life for me and I never want to quit, even though I know the time will come.”
Just as he followed in his parent’s footsteps, the Bradley’s only son, Dr. J. Michael Bradley, who is a product of Aiken County School District, is a practicing clinical psychologist in New Orleans and is married to a commercial photographer.