Today, Linda Winston has an award that recognizes her as Teacher of the Year for the MAACE (Mississippi Association of Adult and Community Educators).
What she doesn’t have, as far as we know, is a nickname. We suggest “Slash” because that is how she identifies herself when asked about her job is at the Greater Columbus Learning Center.
“I’m teacher-slash-counselor-slash-mother-slash-whatever else,” she says. “Whatever role I need to be for that person, that’s what I’m going to be.”
Our affinity for teachers is nothing new and we welcome opportunities to sing their praises. But our efforts are poor compensation for all they do. They are, as a group, under-paid and under-acknowledged.
We are particularly pleased to pay our meager tributes to teachers such as Winston and her fellow instructors at the GCLC, for reasons that probably resonate for everyone.
Ask any teacher what they value most in a student and they will tell you that there is nothing more gratifying than having a bright-eyed, confident, eager, young student whose potential is entrusted to their hands.
But these are not the students teachers such as Winston regularly encounter. It is the nature of GCLC, which serves those who have fallen through the cracks for a variety of reason.
Many are drop-outs, Some are ex-convicts trying to make amends for their sins. Many are single parents, struggling to provide a decent life for their children. Some are older people whose lives have come undone, often through no real fault of their own.
They are often wounded people facing what seems to be insurmountable odds. They lack skills, education, self-esteem, confidence.
Of all the stories we love, we love most those stories about people who have overcome enormous challenges and obstacles to achieve great things.
Who is not inspired by these people? We hold them up as examples of the triumph of the human spirit.
The single mother who balances work, child-care and study and finally emerges as a successful person is someone we hold in high esteem. … After the fact, of course.
But who is there for that single mom before the cheering starts?
Who is there for her at the beginning of that long, seemingly impossible journey? Who is there to build her up? Who is there to listen to her story, to provide her sympathy and support, to be her champion when every worried step is a weary one? Who is there to pick her up when she falls and says to her, ‘You can do this! I will help!”
Who is there when her world is all questions and no answers?
She needs something more than a teacher.
She needs a “Slash.”
She needs someone like Linda Winston.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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