Working in education, specifically as a teacher, is not a 9 to 5 job. A teacher does not clock in, clock out, and put down their work until the next morning. Those in education know. Done right, education is a beautifully woven tapestry of both the art and science of teaching. While the focus of the tapestry is the student, the heart of it comes from the teacher. Meet Amy Crawford, the creator of one of the most beautiful tapestries in Tennessee education.
Education has always been a part of Amy’s story. Long before she stood in front of a classroom, Amy was learning about the power of education from her own family. Her grandfather, Ebb King, was an elementary school principal, and her grandmother, Martha King, was an elementary teacher. Her father, Tom King, began his career in education before eventually leaving the profession for sales after someone convinced him that teaching was somehow beneath his talents. While Amy has often wondered what might have been different if someone had reminded her father of “the immeasurable value of a great teacher”, she found her calling as a teacher and leaned into that calling. Because of her choice, thousands of lives both in and out of the classroom have been impacted.
Today, that family legacy continues in a variety of ways. Her daughter, Chelcie Morrison, taught at Mooreland Heights for five years and now homeschools three of her five children. Her son, Drew, works with RocketCert, an online educational platform serving individuals seeking licensure and continuing education in a variety of professional fields. Her daughter, Addie Coughlin, serves as an academic support coach at Covenant Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her youngest, Sam, continues the family tradition as a Social Studies teacher at Carter High School in Knox County.
For Amy, though, her own journey into education can be traced to one particular person and one very specific place: Her grandfather’s lap. “I can still remember him reading poetry aloud from The Best Loved Poems of the American People,” she recalls. “I remember the sound of the binding cracking as he opened the book and the rhythm of his voice bringing words to life.” Her grandfather, Ebb, was the first person to introduce her to the power of words and played a significant role in her life. Those childhood moments stayed with her and profoundly shaped the teacher she would become.
Early Years
Amy is a proud product of Knox County Schools. She attended Cedar Bluff Primary, Intermediate, and Middle Schools before attending Farragut High School. She went on to Carson-Newman College, graduating in the spring of 1988. While at Carson-Newman, Amy married Tom Crawford. This year, the couple celebrates 40 years of marriage. Throughout her career, Tom has been her “greatest supporter and most faithful partner,” walking beside her through the long nights, successes, disappointments, challenges, and unexpected turns that came with a life as a teacher.
Amy also credits one of her Carson-Newman professors, Dr. Bernard Bull, with influencing the direction of her life. “At a time when I struggled to see anything particularly worthy in myself, he believed in me,” she says. That belief gave Amy the courage to take risks she might otherwise have avoided. More importantly, Dr. Bull taught her a lesson that would become one of the most enduring principles of her career: sometimes believing in someone before they can believe in themselves can change the entire trajectory of their life.
That lesson would eventually become central to Amy’s understanding of education.
Three Decades of Classrooms and Communities
Amy’s career gave her opportunities she could never have imagined when she first entered the classroom. She taught in rural, suburban, and urban schools. Each community had different challenges, different strengths, and different needs. Yet across those experiences, she discovered something remarkably consistent. “All children want to be challenged, and all children want to be loved.” While the circumstances may be different, the resources may vary, and the students may come from vastly different family structures and life experiences, Amy came to believe that every child needs adults who see them, believe in them, challenge them, and refuse to give up on them. This was the tapestry she was weaving– her heart and belief in the students.
Her work was recognized beyond her own classrooms. In 2010, she was named a Tennessee Teacher of the Year state finalist. She also had the opportunity to serve as a State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) Fellow, advocating for students and teachers beyond the walls of her classroom. Some of the most important lessons of her career came from students themselves. One of those students was Andrew.
The Student Who Changed the Question
Andrew was an eighth-grade student who was failing Amy’s class, as well as all of his other classes. His struggles weren’t rooted in a lack of ability. He simply wasn’t completing his assignments. Then one day, Andrew wrote a poem entitled, “I’m the Piece That Never Fits.” The poem stopped Amy in her tracks. His words revealed something much deeper than missing assignments or failing grades. They expressed the vulnerability of a young person who felt as though he didn’t belong. Amy realized Andrew’s story was bigger than his academic performance.
In many ways, his words represented something universal. At some point, most people have felt as though they didn’t fit. Andrew reminded her that behind every disengaged student is a story. And sometimes what looks like apathy is actually a longing to be seen, understood, valued, and loved. That realization became one of the sparks that would eventually lead to Reach Them to Teach Them.
An Old Cassette Tape and a New Idea
Around the same time Amy was wrestling with what she was seeing in her students, she remembered something from the beginning of her teaching career. A friend of her parents had once given her a cassette tape from Focus on the Family. On it, Guy Doud, the 1986 National Teacher of the Year, shared stories from his classroom. Amy remembers listening to that tape while driving home from school and being reminded of just how powerful a teacher’s influence can be.
Then an idea began to form. What if Guy Doud could come to Knoxville? What if educators could gather together for an evening that wasn’t about another program, strategy, or initiative, but about remembering the extraordinary influence they have on their students? With “perhaps more courage than common sense,” Amy found Guy Doud on the internet and contacted him. She told him how much his message had meant to her. He responded.
Doud had retired from teaching and was working as a professional speaker. His fee was $3,500, plus travel expenses. Amy booked him, and then reality set in. She had no venue. No funding source. And, as she puts it, no idea what she had really gotten herself into. Then came what Amy describes as a miracle.
Shortly after booking Guy Doud, Amy went to her mailbox at West Valley Middle School. Inside she found a cashier’s check for $3,000 accompanied by a note. On the line identifying the purchaser were the words, “The Dear Lord.” In the memo line were two words: “His purposes.” As if that weren’t enough, a teacher approached Amy in the hallway with a white envelope containing five $100 bills. The money had come from an inheritance in his mother’s will and he handed it to Amy.
Just like that, they had the $3,500 needed for Guy Doud’s speaking fee. “We had never asked anyone for a penny,” Amy recalls. Through what she describes as a series of “God-winks,” the team secured a venue and the travel expenses needed to bring Doud to Knoxville. Hallerin Hill agreed to serve as emcee, the Cedar Springs Youth Choir provided entertainment, and approximately 500 educators attended that first event. “It was beautiful,” Amy says.
They thought they were finished. They weren’t.
A Vision Becomes a Ministry
A volunteer who had helped with the first event later attended a high school baseball game and struck up a conversation with another mother about the influence coaches and teachers have on young people. “If that coach knew how literally my son takes every word he says, he’d think more carefully about what he says!” the woman remarked. That conversation led to another, which eventually resulted in an introduction to the wife of a local Chick-fil-A owner/operator.
When she heard about Reach Them to Teach Them, she wanted to help. The meeting that followed became another turning point. The man Amy met challenged her to think beyond a single event. “Think like a leader,” he told her.
Where would the ideal venue be? Who could become potential sponsors? What could this become? The questions suddenly became much bigger. But one statement stayed with Amy: “Don’t worry about the money. God doesn’t need money. He’ll always provide.”
Twenty years later, she says she is still learning the truth of those words. “And He still provides.” What began as one event has grown into a nonprofit organization that has spent two decades encouraging, celebrating, and inspiring educators. Yet Amy believes the heart of the mission has remained remarkably consistent.
The organization still believes educators have extraordinary power. It still believes a teacher’s words, expectations, encouragement, and belief in a child can change the trajectory of a life. And it still believes educators sometimes need to be reminded that they matter before they can continue pouring into their students.
The Legacy Continues
After 30 years in education, Amy retired in 2024. Leaving wasn’t a decision she made because she had stopped loving teaching. In many ways, it was one of the hardest decisions she had ever made. She had reached a point where she wanted to spend more time with the people she loved most. Over the years, she had missed important moments while giving so much of herself to her students and her work. Her parents were still living, as were her sisters.
She had come to understand something experience teaches us all eventually: “time is one thing we never get back.” Shortly after Amy announced her retirement plans, her mother, Sandy King, was diagnosed with cancer. She died just five days after Amy’s last day as a teacher. Looking back, Amy sees God’s hand in the timing. Retirement allowed her to shift her priorities and focus on the people who mattered most. It reminded her that while work is important, relationships are sacred.
When Amy reflects on her career, she sees a collection of people and moments that shaped her:
Her grandfather reading poetry.
Dr. Bull believing in her before she could believe in herself.
Students who taught her as much as she taught them.
Colleagues, mentors, parents, friends, and countless others who became part of her story.
And ultimately, she thinks about legacy.
“Perhaps that is what education is ultimately about,” Amy says. Education isn’t simply about lessons, standards, test scores, or report cards. It’s about influence. It’s about planting seeds that educators may never live long enough to see fully bloom. It’s about believing in people, challenging them, loving them, and helping them discover possibilities they cannot yet see for themselves. “I am grateful that education found me,” Amy says. “And I am even more grateful that, through the generations before me and those who have followed, the legacy continues.”
That legacy now lives through her family, her former students, the educators she continues to encourage, and the organization that began with one teacher’s concern about disengaged students. It lives through Reach Them to Teach Them. And perhaps most importantly, it lives through a simple belief that has guided Amy Crawford for decades:
One person who believes in another person can change the trajectory of a life.
Submitted by: TN Educator Collective in collaboration with Amy Crawford
Amy Crawford is a veteran educator, educational leader, and founder and president of Reach Them to Teach Them, a faith-based nonprofit dedicated to inspiring educators and reminding them of the profound influence they have on children’s lives. With more than 30 years of experience teaching elementary and middle school students in diverse settings, Amy was named East Tennessee Regional Middle School Teacher of the Year, Knox County Middle School Teacher of the Year, Tennessee PTA Teacher of the Year, and a state finalist for Tennessee Teacher of the Year.
She has served as a Tennessee Educator Voice Fellow, SCORE Tennessee Educator Fellow, and contributor to statewide and district-level educational initiatives. Through Reach Them to Teach Them, Amy and her team have reached thousands of educators and other influential adults, equipping and encouraging them to make a lasting difference in the lives of young people. Passionate about faith, education, and the power of relationships, Amy continues to champion the people who shape the next generation.
In addition to her incredible and extensive professional experience, Amy is more proud of and thankful for her amazing family who bring so much joy, love, and purpose to her life. She is grateful for the 40 years of partnership, love, and life together with her husband, Tom. Together, they raised four loving and successful children: Chelcie (Mike) Morrison, Drew, Addie (Carter) Coughlin, and Sam. Amy also relishes one of life’s greatest gifts. She has the blessing of loving and pouring into her five precious grandchildren: Miller Kate, Eloise, Ford, Maisie, and Townes.
