Teacher Spotlight: Becki Buffaloe

By Senior Evie Fordham

High school social studies department head Becki Buffaloe, who teaches U.S. History, Current Events, and Bible, can’t remember a time in her life when she didn’t want to be a teacher, as she even loved playing “school” as child and started babysitting at age nine.

In her thirty-three years of teaching, Mrs. Buffaloe has taught children of every age “from the Headstart Program to twelfth grade” with the exception of grades four, five, and nine.

“It is quite amazing that I even became a teacher because starting in sixth grade I had major struggles with math which carried over to science,” she stated, “Learning disabilities were not weeded out so much for children in the fifties and sixties… looking back, it is quite obvious that I had a math learning disability — it was almost like math dyslexia.”

However, Mrs. Buffaloe can see the good that eventually emerged from her struggles. She said, “I think in some ways it has helped me better teach students who struggle because I lived it. I tell my students that no one cut me any slack. I had to be determined to keep going and not give up.”

She added, “I know that many, many prayers were prayed for me along the way.”

Mrs. Buffaloe also recognizes that for some students, being interested in the subject can be the hard part.

“History can be such a dry subject,” she explained, “Many people do not like it, so a history teacher has to be passionate.”

Mrs. Buffaloe, a self-proclaimed history buff (pun intended), keeps her students engaged through her love of history and passion for it that “just seeps out of” her. She also values the subject of English because writing well is important in so many areas of life and is not “an isolated subject,” in her words.

She has developed a passion for current events, saying, “I also feel it is the duty of a Christian to be well-informed about the world in which we live. Teaching Current Events is probably the hardest job I have ever had because you truly see the ‘evil’ world system… I have II Corinthians 4:8-9 posted in many places for when Current Events discourages me.”

When not in the classroom, Mrs. Buffaloe enjoys spending time with her husband of almost forty years, Merrick, and their three children and four grandchildren. She is well-loved by all of the students she’s taught, who affectionately call her Mrs. B or Mrs. Buff.

She’s not afraid to share hard truths with her students, and she declared, “The biggest life lesson I stress to my [students]… is that each of us are walking billboards for Jesus Christ. I talk to them about how we cannot cram our beliefs down someone’s throat — we have to live it. I stress that people are watching us to see how we react to the ups and downs of life. There is lots of accountability there.”