In this sentence, dashes are necessary in the following part:
"Ms. Zuckerman -my fourth grade teacher- was my favorite teacher of all time."
Dashes have different functions in a sentence. In this case, the dash is used to provide extra information in a sentence, especially for clarification.
An alternative to the use of dashes, is the use of commas but dashes are preferred when there are additional commas in the same sentence that may generate confusion in the reader.