Teaching is both one of the hardest and most satisfying occupations for those who are called to do it.
While teachers may have other reasons as well for deciding to teach, there is a common factor that is vital for all teachers to have in order for them to love their job and do it well: a love for kids.
For Dixie McCollough, the love she possessed for children was what inevitably brought her to the education field.
“I wanted to teach because of my love for children,” proclaimed Dixie. “You hear that from all teachers, but if you don’t love kids, there’s no need to go into education. I just grew up babysitting kids, so working with children was just part of my life. It just seemed like it was the thing to do, so I went into education for the kids. I’ve never regretted that decision.”
Once she graduated from high school, she attended the University of Southern Mississippi where she attained her bachelor's degree in elementary education. She then went on to obtain her master’s degree at Mississippi State University.
Throughout her 28 year career, she has predominantly worked at the Quitman School District and with the same grade level. In fact, there have only been two years that she was not working with second graders.
“I worked one year with Laurel School District, Laurel city schools, and then have worked 27 years for Quitman School District,” informed Dixie. “In Laurel, I taught sixth grade science. One of those years at Quitman taught interventions in kindergarten. The other 26 years have been in second grade. I’ve been a reading interventionist for second grade for 11 years, and the other years were in the classroom as a general second grade teacher.”
One of the things she has always enjoyed the most is the different ways she has been able to bring the lessons to life for her students so that they can have fun while learning.
“My favorite thing about teaching is actually just the different things I can implement when I’m teaching, like the different hands-on activities,” proclaimed Dixie. “We don’t just open a book and read it. I can bring in so many different things to incorporate into my lesson. It’s just one of my favorite things to plan for my reading group according to the level of students that are here. I can bring in things and have games to make reading fun. When they come to my table, they’re excited, even in our interventions. When I was a kid, if someone came to pull you out of class, you didn’t want to go; when I go to pick up my kids from class, they are excited to come to intervention because they know it’s something new every day, something different. That’s just my favorite thing about teaching. We have a lot of resources here that we can use. Our school district really provides us with what we need, so I can use many different things in a reading lesson. It could be a magnetic board with magnetic letters, or it could be a tracking device like little foam fingers for them to use. There are just so many things I can pull and resources I can use during my reading group. I love having different things I can implement when I’m teaching.”
Her time as a reading interventionist has been perfect since reading is her favorite subject to teach overall.
“My favorite thing to teach is reading. I just love it,” explained Dixie. “You can see a child grow throughout the year with reading. I never taught first grade, but talking to the first grade interventionists and seeing what they can do in first grade and then seeing what they can do by the end of second grade, it’s amazing to see how much growth they have. I feel like you can see more growth with reading than in any other subject. Of course, I also love it because I just love reading because there is so much I can pull from it. I can take a story and teach so many different skills from it. I can teach phonics skills and comprehension skills and do it in a way that makes it fun. I love being able to take a lesson and provide different activities for them to do to just make it fun. They don’t even know they’re learning because they’re having fun with it.”
With the different stories she has taught over the years, she has made some great memories. Although she enjoyed teaching everything in general, there are some lessons that will forever stand out in her mind.
“We used to have a story that had a lemonade stand in it. Every year, we would make little hats since the story had hats in it,” Dixie reminisced. “The kids would make hats and sell lemonade. For several years, we did that reading series, and we would have a lemonade stand every year. We would invite the parents to it. I would make the lemonade at home and bring it to the school, and the kids wore their little hats. Every day, a few of them would get to work, and their parents got to come buy lemonade on the day they worked. They’d come to the classroom with their little quarter to buy some lemonade, and the kids absolutely loved it. We were able to bring in math with that lesson and other different skills too. It was just something having the parents come to buy lemonade from their stand. We even did it outside one year where people could just come by and purchase some. At one point, it had even evolved where all the kids in the school were coming to buy lemonade. It was just such a hit that teachers wanted to bring their classes, so we would assign classes to come on certain days. It was a lot, but it was a lot of fun. Through all that, they were able to learn skills like reading comprehension and how to relate the story to real life. With the lemonade stand, we could bring in graphs and counting with how much we made and how many glasses we sold one day compared to the day before. We brought in graphing and money skills as well. That lemonade stand was probably like 15 years ago and is just one of my favorite memories.”
Academic skills aren’t the only thing she was able to teach through her lessons. They also allowed her to teach social skills and other life skills that they will need.
“We used the money we raised with our lemonade stand to donate for whatever was needed for someone in the district,” continued Dixie. “One year, we bought a little boy some glasses. His glasses had broken and he needed new ones, so we donated the money to a good cause. Another year, there was a child that had cancer and was going through chemotherapy. We took the money and donated it to her family. We always used the money for something school related for somebody that was in need. Because of that, they were learning how to give and care and help others. They were able to learn empathy. We actually got to go and give the money to the family. The child taking chemo was at the upper elementary, and the mother actually came and met us there that day, so they got to meet both the mom and the little girl. They got to see who and what they were helping. With the little boy that got the glasses, we got to actually go down there and see him with his new glasses.”
Of course, there have been some challenges over the years with changes that constantly occur in the field of education, but she has always been able to adapt and overcome them.
“I haven’t really had too many challenges over the years, and I feel like I’ve had it pretty good all these years. The hardest thing to me is probably the learning changes with all the paperwork and stuff like that. I started doing the lead for pre-k probably four or five years ago, and that was a big adjustment to get familiar with all the paperwork involved with that,” explained Dixie. “Time management was a bit of a challenge in the classroom. It always felt like I was crunched for time because I would want to do so many things and have to watch the time because we also had to get to lunch or get to recess or get to other activities. Managing my time was probably my second biggest challenge that I dealt with.”
Ater 28 years in the classroom, she has decided that it’s time to enter into the next chapter of her life and has officially retired. Although she loves and will miss her work family, she knows that it is time to take the next step in her life.
“There comes a point in life where your family starts growing more with grandkids, your parents get elderly, and there’s just more need for you in other places,” expressed Dixie. “I feel like you just know it’s time to retire when you start having to try and manage all those other things, too. That was my deciding factor to retire. I want to be able to put more time into the needs of my family. Our baby graduated this year, so it’s a whole new chapter for us. Yes, I’m going to miss my coworkers. I love them dearly, and I’m going to miss working with children every day, but I do want to come back and work a little part-time because once you’re a teacher, you’re always a teacher. I’m sure Lee isn’t going to want me to use my teacher voice with him, so I’ll have to come back to the school a little to get that out of me.”
She doesn’t plan to stay still in her retirement. Instead, she intends to stay busy at home and has offered to come back to help at the school occasionally.
“My husband and I have a farm where we raise cows and chickens, and he grows crops. It’s time to go home and help him some,” declared Dixie. “I’m going to be helping him mainly with our herd of cows and the chickens. We have chicken houses, and I wouldn’t really be doing a whole lot other than going and flipping some switches. I’ll just be helping on the family farm and probably baking more of my cinnamon rolls. I’m famous in Clarke County for my Dixie McCollough cinnamon rolls, as everybody calls them. I’m going to see if I can do a little part-time in education. I’d like to continue doing some part-time work, but the farm is probably my number one goal. I’ve made mention that I will come and help if they need any help with interventions. I’m just excited about it all. My husband and I also get along great, so I’m looking forward to us having more time together.”
With all the years of experience she has, she leaves the following advice for current and incoming teachers:
“Love your kids. Know that every kid you get was given to you for a reason,” advised Dixie. “If you don’t love your kids, they cannot learn from you. Loving your kids is the number one thing. They know if you care or if you don’t. If you care and they know it, they will do what they need to do for you. They might not do what you want them to do as far as growth and stuff, but they’re going to do better knowing their teacher cares. Just love your kids and show them you care.”
