“The best thing about teaching is seeing that you can have a positive impact on someone and that it sticks with them for so long.”
Before retiring in early 2010, Sue Hughes worked as a teacher in the Memphis community for 40 years. Over the course of her career, Hughes taught kindergarten through third grade. “I always taught younger kids because I had a soft spot for them,” she says. Her favorite ages to teach were kindergarten and first graders: “There is a lot of love there.”
For Hughes, teaching was in the family. “My mom and dad [were] teachers at one time; that probably helped create my path,” she says. It was also a profession where she could work during the day and be home to spend time with her children. “There were not many jobs for females [back then],” says Hughes.
She started her career around the time of desegregation and mentions that she was the first Caucasian person some of her students had seen. Hughes notes that “it was really important” to create this integration in schools.
Kindergarten was the main focus of Hughes’ career, and she reflects on how the grade changed through the years. “When I first started teaching, we had to create our own curriculum, and we often took students on weekly field trips to combine the world and the classroom,” she says.
She had a lot of freedom with building her class in the way that she wanted. In creating her own curriculum, Hughes knew she wanted to focus on reading. “In kindergarten, students were working on skills for a pre-reading level of learning, and in first grade, they were starting to read small books,” she recalls. “I loved helping them learn how to read and watching them grow in their skill level.”
For Hughes, the best part of teaching was “just getting to know kids.” She reflects on the love that she had for her students and the connections she made with them, and her students loved her back. Along with Mrs. Hughes’ Outstanding Teacher nomination, there was a note from the nominator, Menthia Bradley, about how Hughes allowed her to be a teacher’s assistant during nap time, an experience which inspired her to become an educator, too.
“Even though I was 4,” Bradley wrote, “my writing was legible and I could write on the board, clean erasers, and sooth other children back to sleep when they woke up too early. Now I am a nurturing educator!”
The two recently reconnected. “She got back in touch with me, and it had been like 39 years since I taught her,” Hughes says. She is proud of her former student and all that she has accomplished, and was very touched by the reunion. “It was just so sweet of her, and to know that something I did when she was 4 or 5 years old made an impression. As a teacher you can really have a positive impact on someone.”
*Editor’s note: With exception of this special edition of Outstanding Teacher, nominators remain anonymous.
We want to shine a light on your child’s teacher, or even a teacher who made a difference in your life. Submit your nomination today by emailing teacher@memphisparent.com.