To most people, retirement is a time to step back, slow down, and take life a little easier. For Regina Brown, it has been the opposite. After decades in the classroom and in administration, she continues to teach, answering the call whenever a school needs her. This year, that call brought her to Meridian, where she is teaching fifth-grade math and English Language Arts.

“This is my first year at Meridian,” Regina explained. “I’m retired, but with the teacher shortage, I came back. I still have the energy and the drive.” She laughs when she describes teaching as her hobby, but for her, it’s the truth. “Everybody’s got a hobby,” she said. “Mine is teaching.”

Regina’s journey in education has spanned multiple communities and countless classrooms. She began her career teaching in Cairo. Later, she taught in Elgin, Illinois, before moving back home when her mother became ill. Much of her career was spent in Cairo, where she taught for ten years before stepping into administration. She served as the principal at Cairo Elementary for five years, following more than two decades of teaching there. After retiring, she returned to the classroom in new ways—first in Sykeston, Missouri, then in Cairo, and now in Meridian.

Her education reflects her determination to grow as a teacher and leader. A graduate of Cairo High School, she earned her undergraduate degree at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, followed by a master’s in administration from McKendree University and a master’s in leadership from Walden University. She even pursued doctoral coursework at Walden, completing nearly everything before stepping into the demanding role of principal. Though she set the doctorate aside, she says she still wants to finish it one day.

Her teaching style is hands-on and deeply interactive, designed to help students not only understand concepts but also to connect them to real life. She uses rubrics and “I can” statements that break down state standards into language students understand. At the end of each lesson, students can say what they have mastered: “I can order decimals to the thousandths place,” or “I can write a personal narrative.”

She pairs that with a system called developing assessment-capable learners. Students hold up fingers to show where they are: one means they don’t understand yet, two shows they’re developing, three signals progress, and four means they can explain it to others. “We leave no passengers behind,” Regina said. “Everybody’s moving forward.”

The goal isn’t just knowledge—it’s ownership. Students learn to reflect on what they know and what they don’t. And they learn how to say it out loud, without embarrassment. Regina has a way of making that safe, whether by using humor, drawing on family scenarios to explain math symbols, or giving students permission to be honest about what’s hard.

Her classroom is full of movement and conversation, but it’s structured. She sets expectations before each lesson—what volume levels should be, how to work with a partner, when to move, and how to ask for help. She calls it champion teaching, where students learn not just content but also how to collaborate, respect boundaries, and build confidence in themselves.

Her approach seems to work. Students respond to her energy, her clarity, and her genuine love for the work. “What’s my job here?” she’ll ask them. “To keep us safe,” they answer. “And what else?” “To educate us.” Those two answers are the foundation of every day in her classroom.

When asked how long she’ll keep teaching, Regina doesn’t hesitate. “Only the Lord knows,” she said. “But I do know that I will forever teach until it’s time to sit down.” She’s already delayed retirement once, staying longer than she needed to because she felt the work wasn’t done. Even after caring for her mother during hospice and later supporting her brother, a Cairo firefighter, she found herself drawn back to teaching. “It gives me purpose,” she admitted.

Now, in her first year at Meridian, she has joined a staff she describes as hardworking and united. “It’s a great community. We work from the time we get here to the time we leave, and everyone is working together. The curriculum is aligned, the expectations are clear, and everyone is on the same page,” she said.

For Regina Brown, teaching has never been just a job. It has been a lifelong calling, one that continues even after retirement. Her presence at Meridian is proof that sometimes the best teachers are the ones who can’t imagine life without a classroom.

And for now, she isn’t planning to imagine anything else.