Crystal Forthman teaches fourth grade at Joppa-Maple Grove—her seventeenth year in a district where she's taught nearly every elementary grade level. "I was hired as a classroom reduction teacher years ago," she explains, "so I got to learn from multiple teachers. They showed me their lessons, their reasoning, and I just kept growing." 

What she didn't realize was how many of the students she taught would someday become her colleagues.

"I actually had Paxton's brother when I first started," she says, nodding toward Paxton Cohoon, who now teaches middle school English in her third year at Joppa. "Her mom and her grandmother helped me in the classroom. And now I'm teaching with her."

For Cohoon, coming home to Joppa wasn't just about employment—it was about belonging. "I grew up here," she says. "These are my people. When I started, I was nervous, but I felt welcomed."

That culture of collaboration is what makes Joppa special. "I choose to teach here because we do have the opportunity to teach the whole child," Crystal explains. "It's more than just academics."

Her classroom is grounded in Joppa's guiding philosophy: grit, growth, and grace. "We are determined, we're focused," Crystal says. "We encounter a problem that's difficult, we persevere, and then we track our growth. And then grace—we all make mistakes. I'm offering you grace today. We love you."

She reads The Little Engine That Could to her fourth graders every year. "I know they're in fourth grade, but they love it. Anytime we come across something hard, I'm like, I think I can. That's our motto."

Paxton picks up the thread. "It's really full circle, because when you show them grace, they go back to that grit and continue."

That philosophy comes alive each year when Crystal takes her students to the Fort Massac encampment—Illinois's first state park, just down the road. "It gives them an opportunity to see history come to life," she says. "We read the story of Lewis and Clark from the dog's perspective—Seamen. So when they go to the park and they see the Ohio River, they connect to it in a different way than just, oh, there's the river we crossed to go to Paducah."

The encampment, set in the mid-1700s to early 1800s—the frontier era—features reenactors in period clothing demonstrating life when Fort Massac flew under three different flags: Spain, France, and finally, the United States. "Whenever they actually see history come to life, they're able to connect the park in a different way," Crystal explains.

Paxton, who attended the encampment as a student herself, sees its lasting impact. "By the time I get the kids after they go to the encampment, they know what that time period is because they made a connection there. I remember when I was a little girl when I went. We talked about Mother Goose and we did basket weaving. And I remember all the canons. And I still go every year."

Crystal nods. "It really makes it tangible. It brings learning to life. A lot of kids are just indoors, and this gets them out."

The two teachers laugh about the overlapping webs of connection. "I've had the opportunity to work with some of my teachers who taught me," Paxton says. "They would find stuff in their pantries. They're like, you wrote this. Do you want to see it?"

That continuity isn't just nostalgia—it's legacy. "I do believe it takes someone with a kind heart to work here," Crystal says. "If you don't have that heart to give your all, to identify where this kid is actually struggling—it may not be academically, but it may be socially—then this isn't the place."

She tells her students about her own struggles with math, how her mom had to reteach every skill. "But I didn't give up. And now here I am teaching math."

Crystal's voice softens as she circles back to the phrase that holds everything together: "Pouring into others that are empty." She says it like a mantra, not as a boast, but as daily practice.

And in a place where teachers once taught the parents of their current colleagues, where former students return to teach about the canons they remember from childhood, and where history lives just down the road, that pouring becomes the work itself.