Camelot teacher offers hope amid her lessons

“Life is unpredictable. It doesn’t always work out the way we want it to, but we don’t have to let that make life an unpleasant event or circumstance.” 

Camelot Elementary School teacher Sarah Spring lost her mother to cancer when she was little, but she found her purpose through that loss.

“It was the school environment that really played an important role in healing from that and moving forward with my life,” said Spring. 

She became an elementary school teacher to impact kids at an early age and help them navigate the unpredictable world.

“They are not just students who are here to get knowledge. They are tiny people who are experiencing life. So, you have to know your students. You have to build relationships.”

Her story came full circle last year when one of her students lost their battle with cancer.

The relationships she built and the life experiences she went through came together to offer much-needed help, hope and healing.

“Showing up for people is important. That was imperative to being able to offer services to that family as they were experiencing what they were experiencing—taking the time beforehand to be the kind of teacher that is involved in their lives, in their parents’ lives. That enables us when they are going through real stuff. They feel like they can lean on you. They can come to you for support. Community is so important to withstand those challenges in life.”

For Spring, being a teacher is much more than teaching. She understands her role can fill many different needs for many different students. The foundations she lays with every student and family are just as important as what she teaches in class.

The foundations of addition, subtraction and phonics she teaches in the classroom prepare her students for a life of learning. However, she understands the groundwork has to be laid before success.

You have to fail to learn.

“The most successful life stories are people who use their failures to continue to grow,” said Spring. “So, I love to see kids take on challenges. Fail. And then try again. That’s part of it.

They don’t all believe they can do hard things. But you want to have the kind of classroom where failure is the normalcy. We fail, we think about it, we talk about it, we learn from it and we move on.”

Life isn’t always fair.

But you could make a pretty good argument that it’s better when you have a teachers like Sarah Spring.