Teaching Is a MinistryRead Time 10 min

The thought of a three-room schoolhouse conjures up a scene you’d imagine from “Little House on the Prairie” — not the typical setting of a modern Catholic school.

But that’s how Robbi Hughes started as a teacher in rural Fond du Lac County in 1984.

“When I was a child, I always wanted to be a teacher. My mother tells me that to this day. That’s all I ever wanted to do. I started teaching at Our Lady of Angels,” said Hughes.

“I loved kids, I loved to babysit. I was always the person in the neighborhood playing school; I was always the teacher, and of course, the teacher with the dolls and the little stuffed animals. I can’t explain it.”

Now in her fifth decade of teaching, the first-grade teacher at Shepherd of the Hills in Eden can succinctly explain why she remains even more dedicated to that calling than before — particularly because now, she sees the “why” of her calling.

“I think it’s a ministry,” said Hughes, “and that’s why I’ve been where I have been for so long.”

It started at that three-room K-8 schoolhouse in Armstrong, where each room had three grades within it.

“It was hard work, but good,” said Hughes. “We had about 40 kids in the school, got to know all the kids, all the families, did sledding outside, did a lot of fun things, because it was so small.”

She says that intimacy brought a chance to meet and understand every child within the school, building a family atmosphere that still reflects the area.

“A lot of them were related, so you got to know the kids, their parents, their grandparents,” Hughes said.

Our Lady of Angels, along with two other area schools, eventually joined the Shepherd of the Hills School community.

“It still is a real community, and a lot of people are related. Cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles. So even today, when we do things, we get aunts and uncles and grandparents, the whole group, to come to our open houses or things like that.”

Often, she’s teaching children and even grandchildren of former pupils.

“Knowing the original parents who are now the grandparents, and then the parents and the kids, that’s really kind of fun when you tell the kids, ‘I had your mom in school,’” Hughes said. “That helps the kids in their education because they know everyone.”

Hughes believes the close community brings a chance to build a trust in evangelizing through education.

“As a school and in my classroom, we start out our day with prayer. When you walk in our building, we have some beautiful crucifixes and it’s a lot of religious artwork and icons, I guess you’d call them,” she said.

“We pray if people go on a trip, we pray over our students, our classmates. We do the happy birthday, God bless you. We pray before lunch. We pray at the end of the day. During Advent, Lent, we have special devotions there. We do the Rosary once a month. We go to Mass. We plan the Mass. Little kids read at Mass. I’m teaching first grade. Religion classes, I do three times a week. They are very active in their faith all day.”

But for Hughes, showcasing where God is present doesn’t just come in formalized, organized prayer times.

“I talk often about God moments, little things that happen that you can’t really understand. But personally, I feel God is that little thing, whatever it is, a coincidence, or a God moment,” she said.

“We’ve been doing things like field trips to do service. We’ve collected things for service. We’ve done skits with the service, have the kids write letters to the elderly in the parish. It’s so cool for the kids to see that someone else is appreciating what they’re doing, if they get the letter back. And it’s just a really good service project.”

Hughes says she often hears from former students who remember the impact she made on them.

“Students that I’ve had before who come back will give me a hug and just ask how I’m doing, or remember when we did this,” she said.

“I played Schoolhouse Rock every day for snack for some of these kids. And a few years ago, I got an email from a college student who said ‘Thank you for playing that for us because we had to memorize the preamble to the Constitution. And because you played that, I was the only one who knew it.’”

Little impacts make big differences, both practically and in a young person’s faith life. That’s what keeps Hughes not just going but enjoying her continued calling as a teacher.

“You can always bring Jesus into your classroom,” she said. “It’s God working all the time.”

Hughes at a Glance

School: Shepherd of the Hills in Eden

Years at school: 40

Years teaching: 40

Favorite saint: St. Teresa of Avila

Hobbies: Reading, cooking, spending time with grandkids

Favorite food: Mexican

Quote that guides your life: (from St. Teresa of Avila) “Let nothing disturb you; Let nothing frighten you; All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things; Whoever has God lacks nothing: God alone suffices.”