At Cogito Academy, fourth grade teacher Mr. Erik Gommer has built a reputation as an educator who takes both his students and his craft seriously. Now in his third year of teaching overall and his second at Cogito, Mr. Gommer teaches all four core subjects along with Core Virtues, and he brings to his classroom a set of interests that go well beyond the standard curriculum, including STEAM education, project-based learning, and work with gifted and talented students.
Mr. Gommer’s path to the classroom did not begin with a single defining moment but grew out of years of small experiences that pointed him in the same direction. He first found his interest in teaching while volunteering in Sunday School and Youth Group at his church. That early spark led him to seek out more opportunities to build his skills, including a stint at the Macfeat Laboratory School, roles in student leadership, substitute teaching, camp counseling, and tutoring. Each experience added another layer to his understanding of what it means to guide young people, and together they convinced him that teaching was where he belonged.
When asked what drives him, Mr. Gommer points to something simple but ambitious: a desire to make a difference in as many lives as possible. That goal has shaped his career from the start. His first year in the classroom was spent teaching second grade, and for the past two years he has taught fourth grade, a shift that gave him a broader view of how students grow and change across elementary school.
Before stepping into a classroom of his own, Mr. Gommer graduated summa cum laude from Winthrop University, a distinction that speaks to the same drive for excellence he now brings to his teaching. He counts recent recognition from Erskine and Cogito among the highlights of his career so far, noting that the values behind the award line up closely with his own. He describes his time at Cogito in overwhelmingly positive terms, a rare thing for any workplace to earn from someone three years into a demanding profession.
Ask Mr. Gommer about his teaching philosophy and he will bring up Jacob Kounin, an educational researcher whose ideas he returns to often. Kounin’s work on teacher withitness, pacing, and engagement has stuck with Mr. Gommer since he first encountered it, particularly the idea that a teacher’s job is to manage the flow of instruction in a way that keeps students interested and attentive while also building genuine rapport with them. It is a philosophy that shows up in the rhythm of his classroom every single day.
What keeps Mr. Gommer at a charter school like Cogito comes down to a handful of things he does not see everywhere else. He points first to the school’s refusal to compromise on academics, noting that the curriculum is built around mastery and excellence rather than teaching to a test. He also values the Core Virtues program, which weaves ethics, values, and good citizenship directly into the school day. Beyond curriculum, he credits the tight-knit nature of the staff and a school leadership team that stays proactively involved in what happens inside individual classrooms, rather than managing from a distance.
Life outside the classroom has brought its own milestones for Mr. Gommer recently. He married his wife, Sydney Gommer, in December of 2025 in Boone, North Carolina. The Cogito community grew a little closer this year as well, as she joined the school as a sixth grade teacher for the 2026-27 school year, making the Gommers one of the school’s newest teaching pairs.
Taken together, Mr. Gommer’s story is one of steady growth built on early experiences, a clear philosophy of engagement and rapport, and a genuine belief in the mission of the school where he teaches. Whether he is pacing a lesson with Kounin’s principles in mind or building relationships with students across the four core subjects, Mr. Gommer continues to bring the same purpose that first drew him to teaching all those years ago in a church classroom.
Thank you, Mr. Gommer, for your commitment to the children of South Carolina!
