What is the most important role a teacher plays? Why?

I feel that the most important role a teacher plays is being a "caregiver" and at the same time someone who is supposed to teach the children everything the need to learn for that year. I think this is also the most challenging role a teacher plays. In my own experience volunteering in classrooms and watching as teachers deal with students who are coming in with issues from home or crying and having bad days. The teacher so often takes on the role of "caregiver" but also to an extent has to keep themselves distanced from the problem at hand or they could never leave the job at night. 

I know sometimes when I have volunteered in classrooms and work with students below grade level, it drives me crazy to try and figure out how to help those students. I know that two of the teachers I have worked with have this issue with one particular student and the school system will not put her in special education, so this leaves it up to the teacher to do everything they can to get this student where they need to be while trying to teach 26 or 27 other kids at the same time. 

I know we can't be the caregiver and the teacher, but sometimes it is hard to watch these struggling students and know sometimes they just need a little extra TLC and that can go a long way in helping them learn when they know someone cares about them and the fact that they believe in them. 

Clerical and Preparation Responsibilities

I didn't get to do a lot of clerical and preparation work while I was in the classroom because the teacher I was doing my hours with was very organized and was usually always completely prepared for the day. On a few occasions she did let me check the homework off from the week before and write it in her score book. I corrected the students fast facts and scored them for her too.

The preparations I did were just making copies for the fast facts that the kids were working on and the spelling groups. The students were just starting to work on times tables and she had me copy the times table sheets that she wanted them to take home for homework after they did the fast facts in class to see what they understood and the areas they needed to work on.

This goes along with assessment in the classroom as well. She would teach a concept then give the students an assignment and when they were finished, she would have them check it as a class and discuss the assignment to make sure they understood the concept they had learned.

The thing I loved was it was not always by worksheets, she had the students assess their learning using the different learning modalities on more than one occasion I was there by working in groups, acting out definitions, using blocks for math and many other things.