Walk to work gets Crouch in the classroom
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Her first obstacle came when her father died soon after she graduated high school, causing her to put off thoughts of college and a teaching career. Before long she married and followed her husband to Memphis, where he was enrolled in pharmacy school.
It was during this time in Memphis her thoughts once again returned to teaching. “We only lived about a mile from where I worked, so I would walk to work every day. As I did, I would pass by this school and see the children playing. Seeing that day after day, I knew teaching was my purpose in life,” said Crouch.
So she decided to go back to school, graduating from MTSU with a bachelor’s degree in 1984.
Her first two years of teaching were spent in the school system filling leaves of other teachers. She then went to Boyd Christian School where she taught for four years before returning to the Warren County School System in 1990. Upon her return, she taught first grade for four years, then Title math for four years.
In 1998 she began her current stint as a third-grade teacher, a position she loves. “The children in third grade are wonderful. They’re at that age where they are beginning to have some independence, but they’re still lovable, sweet children,” she said.
The third grade, Crouch said, is considered to be one of the more difficult of a child’s elementary career, as critical and high-order thinking must be employed on a regular basis. It is during this year that multiplication, one of the cornerstones of all higher math, is first taught to students. Cursive writing is also introduced during third grade, but that is one skill students are excited to learn, she said.
“Reading and math are what we really stress. If students have a firm grasp of these subjects, everything else will fall into place,” she said.
In addition to her teaching duties, Crouch is this year’s Warren County Education Association co-president and serves on her school’s SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) accreditation committee. She is also the chairperson of the Sister Cities exchange program.
Her hobbies include shopping for and collecting antiques. She also enjoys genealogy and has discovered she is related to Daniel Boone and former President Warren G. Harding.
She is married to Russell Crouch, a pharmacist, and has one son, Ryan, a freshman at Tennessee Tech.