Liz Murrieta Hoover uses several aliases.
Some days, she is a wise, old professor; others, an ill-mannered, young cowgirl. She has been known to take on the persona of animals, a reptile and even a head of lettuce. But to her students at Mission View Elementary School, this unconventional and innovative guidance counselor is simply “Miss Liz.”
Hoover, who has a background in social work with an emphasis in play therapy, uses puppets to teach children life skills and develop values, morals and self-esteem.
She has been with Tucson Unified School District for 17 years, 16 at Mission View.
“A lot of times I use props, because kids get so much oral information, they need a visual,” Hoover said.The counselor has quite a guest list when it comes to the puppets she uses. Each is accompanied by its own voice, mannerisms, values and morals. Along with these attributes, many puppets teach civics and history.
For instance, Hoover has a César Chávez puppet and uses the phrase “Sí se puede” to teach the students to never give up. She also educates them about Chávez’s role as a community leader. The Rosa Parks puppet teaches tolerance and how to be an active member of society. The Mahatma Gandhi puppet offers kids the opportunity to “listen with their heart,” Hoover said.
Another puppet, Letty La Lechuga, the Lettuce, is a friend of César Chávez along with her companion Uva, (Grape). They provide third-person accounts of what they saw in the fields during the times when Chávez advocated for migrant workers. Letty also explains good eating habits, avoiding pesticides and community organizing, according to Hoover.
While many TUSD schools have cut counselors to compensate for budget shortfalls, Mission View has kept Hoover. She is a vital component of their children’s educational success, said Elizabeth Redondo, principal at Mission View. 
According to Hoover, counselors are still fighting the old misconception that students only see a counselor when they are in trouble, “and that is absolutely not what a counseling department does,” she said. In fact, TUSD has been used as a national model for counseling K-12 students in teaching life and competency skills, Hoover said.
These skills include respect, compassion, manners and etiquette. Fifth-grader Giselle Chávez has acquired these skills.
“One of the important lessons that I have learned with Miss Liz is how to respect other people,” Chávez said.
Hoover’s hand-held colleagues also include personalities she has developed on her own. One includes Margaret, an ill-mannered cowgirl she developed to teach manners and hygiene for the H1N1 and flu season.
“I think that my favorite puppet would have to be the cowgirl because she doesn’t teach us; we’re the teacher to her because she has a song where she says things that she is not supposed to do and we have to teach her the right way. We teach her how to have manners,” Chávez said.
A common challenge for educators is holding the attention of young students.
“I know that when Liz is teaching her lesson, they are all engaged,” Principal Redondo said. “There is not one student who is not engaged. I even find myself talking to the puppets. I laugh because I say ‘here I go again talking to Gandhi.’”
Redondo said parents, teachers and administrators work together to make decisions “to make the greatest impact on our students and not just in the area of academics but as a whole child.”
Building character skills is the ultimate goal of the entire teaching staff and administration at Mission View, Redondo said.
Hoover integrates her teachings into the existing curriculum by working closely with teachers and administrators to ensure that the children are all receiving the same message.
She incorporates reading and writing in her lessons. She intentionally uses the protocol for structured English immersion, Redondo said. Art is almost always a part of her lesson plan.
Hoover eloquently and humorously uses catch phrases and ideas in her skits in an interactive form that plays out between the puppets and the students.
For instance, she uses an alligator puppet to demonstrate the primitive brain, one that lacks impulse control and good judgment. If a student were to push another child, he might be asked, “Did you use your thinking brain or your alligator brain?” The idea is to equip the kids with enough tools in their “tool box” to be able to problem solve on their own, Hoover said.
And the approach seems to work.
“If there’s a problem, I solve it in a nice way and not a mean way,: said fifth-grader Bianca Salcedo. “It helps me to not be mean to the kids in my family, not to be mean to my cousins.”
Classrooms have also incorporated the use of class meetings to solve disputes instead of sending kids to the office.
Second grade teacher Julie Morales said her classroom holds meeting daily to discuss how recess went and to see how they negotiated their time.
Every Mission View student is assigned a recess buddy, a program that Hoover put in place several years ago to ensures that each child has a playmate during recess and never runs the risk of being left out or all alone. The program allows kids to play in groups of two, four or six, but encourages student to always be on the look out for anyone who is on their own, and utilizing their skills of inclusion, caring and empathy.
New students are immediately welcomed and have “instant friends.”
With the help of her puppets, Hoover has created an environment where children are excited about education and value their role as important members of the community. Her students come to her classroom for about one hour per week, always looking forward to what or who they will learn about next.
“Unless you really get to know children and they get to know you in a positive way, then when those other moments come up for them, I think it’s really hard for them to confide in an adult,” she said.
“School and education is really about relationships with families,” Hoover said.
