Lara Shipley/Adelante

By Havaca Johnson
Adelante contributor

“Touch your toes.”
Elsa Rivera uses exercises to practice her English with an English as a Second Language class in Marshall. At 73, Elsa can wear out the students who are in their 20s. “I exercise everyday,” Elsa tells the other students. She has lived in the United States for more than 20 years, but has never stopped being a student of English.

After the class, Elsa returns to her split-level house. Her refrigerator is covered with more than 190 magnets. Speckled with miniature cups, stoves, sewing machines, fruits, vegetables, animals and indigenous women, the magnet-adorned refrigerator gives appreciation to the simple things in life.

“I collect magnets to decorate and because I like the designs from different parts of the world,” she says. “My favorite magnet is a fire truck that I bought in New York for four dollars. When I push it, the sirens ring.”

Like the magnets, Elsa brings color to everyday life. Her 48-year teaching career has inspired children of all ages to realize their dreams. Rivera has been a teacher and director of a school in a small town called Ciudad Arce, El Salvador, and a teacher for a bilingual preschool in New Jersey.

In El Salvador, Rivera was in charge of opening the National Institute of Ciudad Arce. Under her direction, the school was selected as one of the best institutes in the country. The students and teachers won a trip to Mexico City and Acapulco.

As her refrigerator is covered with magnets, one of Rivera’s walls is consumed with teaching awards — each framed and hung proudly. Not all of Rivera’s rewards came in the forms of plaques and vacation prizes. Her biggest rewards in teaching were helping the youth and the poor achieve magnificent feats.

She recalls when one of her best students did not have money to pay the $5 fee for materials for his final exams. “Without completing this exam, the student wouldn’t have been able to graduate from high school,” she said. “I lent the father money for his son’s test and now that student is a doctor in El Salvador.”

Rivera’s passion for teaching lives on in the hearts of her students. About 25 years ago, her students, now professors, engineers, farmers and doctors, invited her to Los Angeles. A large group of former students and their families surprised her at the airport.

She has been a part of what makes ordinary students achieve spectacular goals. Now, she serves as a role model for immigrants in her community, encouraging them to learn English.