Stepping Beyond the Boundaries of a Traditional Educator

More often than not, today’s teacher serves a role defined by much more than just an educator to their students. Sometimes the role involves listening to the struggles of students and their family outside the classroom.

Arkansas High School’s tenth grade English teacher Liz Green recounts many situations depicting how her role crosses the boundaries of a traditional educator. She emphasizes that the parents play such an important role in the child’s life, and many times today the primary caregiver might not be the traditional family we once thought it was. As an educator, she sees the way those situations reflect the student’s classroom behavior.

“I hear heart-wrenching stories from grandmothers who are working two jobs in order to raise grandchildren. I listen to testimonies of single working mothers, also struggling with all of the many ‘hats’ they must wear. I cry along with a young aunt who awakens one morning to discover she has a teenage boy to raise as a result of the death of her sister. I exchange emails with a mother in Dallas trying to stay involved in her son’s life in Texarkana. I speak to fathers who seek advice but also share struggles about working long hours and being faced with even harder work when they arrive home.”

Raised in Ashdown, Arkansas, Green has worked in education for over thirty-eight years. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Henderson State University and master’s from East Texas State University. She states that public education is being held under a microscope, as our world attributes failure to schools, administrators, and teachers. Yet, Green feels some major public education issues that she, as an educator, must confront daily include poverty, bullying, lack of parental involvement, lack of student motivation, broad interest in areas other than learning, increased student employment, intense lobby to privatize public education, breakdown of the traditional family, and societal issues in general. So many times our children face emotional and physical troubles that stem from their home life.

Green says, “one thing I am certain of is this: if a child is struggling with issues at home, those struggles will intensify at school.” Although our modern family dynamics can sometimes bring tough challenges, Texarkana finds itself equipped with educators who strive to prevail in our schools.

Green, as Texarkana Arkansas School District’s 2011 Teacher of the year, exemplifies herself as one of many teachers that makes a difference and extends her duties to encompass her students’ personal needs. Green explains how it takes more than being “equipped” to solve problems. She says that it takes guidance from more than educators. That guidance is prayer, and she personally uses it on a daily basis.

Green says, “The problem is one all too many of our kids face, and so many parents just are not equipped to deal. Or maybe the problem really is no one of us have an answer. At the risk of sounding preachy to some or perhaps even offending others, my suggestion is pure and simple…Prayer.”

It is a solution that so many of our community members credit with success.

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“Teaching is not just a job I routinely attend; it is a passion that I have been fortunate to live out. Teaching is not just a paycheck at the end of the month; it is a ministry that I cannot imagine being without. Teaching is not just a way I fill my day; it is as much a part of me as are my faith, my family, and my friends. Teaching is one of the major ways I define myself, and I take great pride in that definition.”