“Teaching has been my identity for 32 years. I’m going to miss watching my students accomplish things, and watching them feel accomplished,” said civics teacher Kirk Livingston. After devoting himself to teaching for many years, Livingston has become a fixture of North Platte High School. He has been involved in sponsoring student council, mock trial, emceed for multiple school events, and has actively participated in fundraisers in the community.

However, Livingston stands out as a teacher because of his unconditional willingness to help and offer guidance to anyone who needs it. A philosophy that Livingston follows that has made him such a successful educator is that no matter who you are, whether you feel like the superstar of high school, or you can’t wait until graduation, you have the potential to impact the people around you and make a difference in your own life. In the last 32 years, Livingston has taken it upon himself to individually help his students find their potential.

Now, if you’ve ever had a class with Livingston, or even a conversation with him, chances are you walked away with a story. The stories always tend to have a common theme. The theme that no matter who you are, what activities you’re involved in, or who you’re friends with, you have more capability and more value than even you realize. “I just want to make sure that every kid knows that they have my respect, and as long as they respect me, I will always see them at the same level as myself,” said Livingston.

Another belief that Livingston has on teaching is that you have to take each and every kid for who they are, and get them to accept that you’re not against them. “Students have really affected me in lots of different ways, with some of the tough things that each one has gone through, and over all the years, I really hope that they’ve all overcome it.”

He is a teacher who will try and individualize his students, not categorize them. “You’re always going to be smarter than you think you are, and better than you believe, and all you need to learn is how to keep pushing through, and putting one foot in front of the other,” said Livingston.
In Livingston’s opinion, as a teacher, you can affect your students in multiple ways, but the way you affect them is up to you. “I know that not everyone is going to remember the material that I teach, but I just wanted to teach students how to think and how to learn, because no matter what changes in the world, thinking skills will never change.”

After more than three decades of educating students, numerous kids would agree that Livingston has never fallen short of a great teacher. Livingston said, “Did I ever expect to end up living in North Platte, Nebraska? No. But as I look back on the last 32 years, I have never regretted any of it.”