A lot of students like to think they have the best teacher in the state. The students of Tammy Greene’s fourth grade class in Kings Consolidated School District 144 actually know they do – because it’s true.

 Last month, Greene was named the Illinois State Historical Society’s Olive Foster History Teacher of the Year for 2018.
According to its website, the annual award “is designed to recognize and reward a full-time teacher for outstanding contributions to the study and teaching of state and local history.” The award is named for the former director of the School Services Program, who started the Illinois History Program for students.
“I’m honored and I’m proud, ” Greene said of the award, which is for the entire state. “It means a lot. I’m in the right place I should be. It’s not just teaching. It’s a calling. It’s more than just a job.”
“This is an amazing accomplishment,” Kings Principal Matt Lamb added. “I’m surprised, but with Miss Greene, I’m not surprised.  She is one of the best educators I have ever met. She always brings a smile to the building and an upbeat attitude to everything she does.”
The award is especially noteworthy when you consider there are only eight students in Greene’s class and 86 in the entire K-8 school.
“It just shows good things come in small packages,” Lamb said, proudly. “We can offer just as much as the bigger schools.”
Besides her many attributes, Greene thinks there may have been one thing that made her stand out among so many nominees, and was eventually instrumental in her winning.

Every year she does a different class project. Last year, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the state, she developed a play called “Illinois: A look Back,” which she wrote, directed and even starred in.
Using everyone in the school, from students to staff, the play was broken down to show several important historical moments in Illinois’ history, including native Americans, John Deere inventing the plow, Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, the Great Chicago Fire, the state’s involvement in both world wars, and even the Cubs winning the World Series.
“We needed something modern,” she said of the Cubs.
“She has done numerous projects,” Lamb said. “I think this was just the cherry on the top, a culmination of all of them.”
Something else Greene does every June is  send a series of 10 postcards of places she visits throughout the state to students who will be in her class that fall. The students are to record where the place is and how far away each one is from Kings. They then turn in their collections when school starts. 
“That introduces my unit to Illinois,” she explains. “I want them to be familiar with the state and acquaint them with different places.”
For winning the state award, Greene received $1,000, a certificate, and a special dinner tribute.
For the awards banquet, which was held April 26, a carful of teachers – many of whom nominated her – drove down to Petersburg where it was held.
A native of Moline, Greene graduated from Northern Illinois University with degrees in education and politics. She has  taught at Kings for 29 years, the first 18 as a seventh and eighth grade teacher before switching to fourth grade.
“I love history and igniting the fire in them, and getting them excited about learning,” she said of her students, many of whom develop a life-long love of learning.
So what do her current students think of all this?
“It’s cool,” one young man said.