Newsmaker: Hero in Education

When Karen Call started teaching at Dorothy Stinson School in Safford, Arizona, she worked in a federally funded program with first and second graders who struggled with math, reading, and language arts skills.

“I was in a room with six children at a time for half an hour,” she explains. “Within a year I knew that I either needed to get out of education or dedicate myself to improving the program.”

Sister Call chose the latter and has spent the last seventeen years developing a program that “meets the needs of the children,” she explains. “Not just educational needs, but their need to be cared for and to value themselves.”

The program she developed has earned her the Reader’s Digest “Hero in Education” award, a recognition given annually to only ten teachers in the United States.

“If there is one accomplishment that singularizes Karen Call,” wrote her principal, who nominated her for the award, “it is her astounding range of service; from local to national, from three-year-olds to adults, from remedial to accelerated programs, from English as a second language to reading, from skill development to whole language—all are pulled together into an integrated program to help students improve.”

During the years Karen has been at Dorothy Stinson, she has initiated a thirty-minute before-school reading session; she has organized an at-home preschool for low-income families; she has proposed, coordinated, and taught summer school sessions; she has provided a monthly newsletter for parents and involves parents in their children’s education; and she has conducted national, regional, and local reading workshops.

As one of the winners, Sister Call will have her work featured in a brochure developed and distributed by Reader’s Digest to educators throughout the United States.

“Of course, it’s been an honor,” says Sister Call, a member of the Safford Fourth Ward, Safford Arizona Stake. “But it’s really a recognition of our entire school as much as recognizing me.”

When talking about education, Sister Call quickly recognizes the impact the gospel has had on her teaching style. “While we can’t preach the gospel in the classroom,” she explains, “deep down I know that these students are children of God. They are children of worth. They can grow. They have potential. And they need our love and concern. Those beliefs are the driving force behind my teaching style.”

Photo by Maren Younce Mecham