I was alone in my own little world of anger, guilt and heartache when our teacher, Mrs. Zink, walked over to gaze out the window near me. She stood there for several minutes and then did the strangest thing. She plopped herself up onto the desktop across from mine, just like one of the kids!
“Linda was pretty great, wasn’t she?” she asked. “What did you like most about her?”
Mrs. Zink asked me question after question and gently guided the conversation to focus on my feelings. The more I talked, the better I felt. My teacher, in a patient, caring way, helped me understand that I shouldn’t feel guilty because I was alive and my friend was dead; that Linda would not want me to be sad or to stop playing and having fun. She assured me that my precious friend was in paradise.
In a moment of certainty I exclaimed, “And the angels are singing to welcome her!” I pictured Linda in heaven—her head flung back with her long hair blowing in the breeze and her arms outstretched as she circled and swayed, dancing in a massive field filled with lilies of the valley. Then, for the first time in days, I smiled. And in my heart I knew the bells were ringing.
That day in our fifth-grade classroom, with my teacher casually perched on top of a small student desk, my grieving passed and healing began.
Kay Conner Pliszka
THE PRINCIPAL IS THEIR PAL
Principals have done all kinds of crazy things to inspire kids to read. Mike Jones is one of those principals.
Jones chose the home-invasion approach.
Dressed in a fluffy white Grinch bathrobe and puppy slippers, the Colorado principal slips into his students’ homes—not to steal Christmas, but to read bedtime stories.
Several evenings each week, Jones visits his students as part of the innovative Goodnight Moon program, which he originated in 1999.
He got the idea from his daughter Jessie who, after being read to one night, told him that it would be nice to hear somebody else’s voice. He thought that if Jessie felt that way, then other kids probably did, too.
Since then, he has visited about four hundred homes, sometimes reading to groups as large as fifteen.
Jones’s goal is to reinforce the importance and pleasure of reading outside of school.
Reading was always a big part of Jones’s family when he was growing up. A former teacher whose wife and three sisters are teachers, he remembers his Grandma Jones reading Goodnight Moon to him when he was a kid. His major inspiration was his dad, a teacher and principal. He grew up understanding that he would never be rich being a teacher or principal, but the rewards far outweigh the lack of pay.
Jones reports that kids think it is cool that the principal would come to their house. They always want to show him their room, introduce him to their brothers and sisters, and show him their pets.
Often, older and younger siblings sit in on story time. Jones usually carries little picture books just in case there are young siblings at his student’s home. He always reads to them, and they get to keep their book, too.
The Goodnight Moon program helps children of all ages value reading outside of school; it also models good “literacy behavior” for parents, says Jones, who practices what he preaches. “My wife and I read and do homework with our children, Ryan and Jessica,” Jones says. When he is in his students’ homes, the parents also sit in. “I want parents to see what they can do to support reading and what kinds of questions and strategies they can use.”
It’s a self-sustaining outcome: The children tell their friends, who tell their parents, who call to invite Jones to read. Kids get fired up about reading, and parents get the tips to keep those home fires burning.
Throw in the milk and cookies, and this just might top Jones’s other reading incentive plan. “I was looking for a fresh way to encourage children to read at home. Our students read more than five thousand hours (three hundred thousand minutes) on a ‘trip around the world.’” As their reward, a teacher shaved Jones’s head at a school assembly celebrating the students and the community.
At least Jones isn’t feeling a draft. His staff gave him a robe and Winnie-the-Pooh slippers, which he sometimes wears for readings.
Jones takes about six to eight books to the house, books appropriate for the grade level or individual needs of the child, and the child picks which book he reads. Afterward, he always inscribes the book with a little note to the child and lets them keep the book.
Jones says his greatest reward comes in the hugs he gets from kids, and the thank-yous from parents. All of them thank him and write notes and bring treats and share good books. One former student has even asked him to stand up at his wedding. He relates that this is one of the best things that has ever happened to him in his professional career. He now knows that he had a positive impact on this young man.
Jones’s impact may be felt in many classrooms to come. “Hopefully,” Jones says, “my reading to the children will inspire them to read every night, and in the long run this has a positive impact on both the kids and the teachers.”
Not to mention the community. For the last two years the Longmont PTA has sponsored a book fair, and in just two years members of the community have donated more than two hundred books to the Goodnight Moon program.
Teaching is one of the few professions in which you often cannot measure your success until years down the road, Jones notes . . . if a student comes back as an adult and says thanks. Yet even if students don’t return, their teachers’ impact is certain.
“Teachers need to be recognized for the outstanding things they do, every day, for kids. I hope that my story inspires teachers to keep doing what I believe to be the most important profession in the world.”
Maria D. Laso
WONDERFULNESS
Bulletin boards are a must, you may know;
You’ve got to have something right up there to show,
So if a proud parent, or some school official
Should drop by to visit, they’ll give a soft whistle
And say to you later, “I simply adored
Your interesting, colorful bulletin board!”
The very first year that ever I taught
I knew that if I was to be worth my salt,
I’d have a perpetual, wondrous sight
All painted and pasted up there to look bright
And make it look like we did really great stuff
All day in the classroom. As kids say, look “tough.”
I forged right ahead with a,“Come on! Let’s go!
It’s time for the bulletin board thing, you know!”
I heard some low groans and some dirty words, too;
My bulletin board kick was not getting through.
Then somebody snickered . . . out loud—so I’d hear,
“It was just one big bulletin board all last year!”
Well, it wasn’t just then I dared do my thing;
I was simply too new to try out my own wings.
But before very long I was all up to here
With bulletin boards, and I got this idea.
We had a traditional board on the wall
With pictures of authors we’d studied, and all.
It was time for a change, so I grabbed up a rose
That some boy’d brought me, and up on my toes
I ripped off the old, and with no reservation
I stapled that rose to the board—a sensation!
Then I picked up a part of a pencil—all split—
Right up on the board with Scotch tape, and it fit!
A broken broom handle tied up the next place,
A messed-up eraser that wouldn’t erase.
By now, all the students had got in the swing,
And all of us bulletin-boarded our thing.
Part of a love note—snatched—torn up by me
Went next to the dead rose, significantly,
A dirty blue beanie left under a chair—
We stapled it up, and it looked good up there.
A cheat sheet (us
ed) next, typed up nice and neat
That somebody went off and left in his seat;
A small vial of perfume, “Pink Passion” the name;
A broken-up comb, and a small checkers game.
Two cards someone lost—a black Jack, a red King
Were next. They went well with the scheme of the thing.
A Superman funny book, big wad of gum;
Then we taped up a rather large Oreo crumb.
It said something REAL, and there wasn’t a doubt
Our collage was what everything’s really about.
You may well suppose that the thing was a mess,
But we loved it and called our board “WONDERFULNESS.”
Ellen T. Johnston-Hale
MRS. KEELING’S CLASS
A teacher did a number on my heartstrings with an “end of school year” gift when my daughter Mimi was in the second grade.
It was the first year wheelchair-bound Mimi, a lovable child of very few words, was placed in a homeroom class with “normal” children. Even though she had attended the same elementary school for several years, Mimi had not had the opportunity to mingle much with the regular education students.
Her homeroom teacher, Mrs. Keeling, made her an integral part of the classroom activities very naturally from the first day, and after a few weeks invited me to talk to the students. She called it a “teachable moment” since her students asked questions about Mimi that she couldn’t answer. They asked me stuff like, “What does Mimi like to do for fun? What is she saying with her hands?” Although our daughter is not deaf, her classmates learned that special-needs children are often taught sign language to express themselves.
I called the moment a turning point in Mimi’s life. I think for the first time her peers thought of her as a “kid in a wheelchair”
instead of a “wheelchair with a kid in it.”
It was a very good school year. Mimi started receiving little notes in her wheelchair backpack from a boy in her class named Joe, often with mazes for her to solve. Because Mimi couldn’t read or write, I started sending him notes and signing them with Mimi’s name. They often included little tidbits about what Mimi had done over the weekend. I think he knew who was really sending them, but Joe never let on. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I learned from his mother that Joe had been the new kid in class that year and was having a difficult time making friends.
The school year ended with a traditional second-grade program where children honor their mothers. The festivities ended with each student coming before the audience and announcing in a loud, clear voice,“I love my mother because. . . .” The student then found his or her mother in the audience and handed her a single flower.
I was sitting there with tears streaming down my cheeks, not only because it was so sweet, but silently grieving because Mimi would never be able to tell me with words why she loved me. At that moment in my life, I was probably between denial and acceptance over her disability, and that added to the emotion of the event.
As it turned out, Mimi was saved for last.
Mrs. Keeling wheeled her to the front and—in a very natural way—announced why Mimi loved her mother and then handed me a flower. You know, I don’t remember the exact words Mrs. Keeling spoke. I’m sure the renewed gush of tears must have affected my hearing. It was then that I realized Mimi tells me many times every day why she loves me. She has simply replaced the words with two thin arms gripped tightly around my neck.
Over the next three years while Mimi attended the elementary school, I came to know many other wonderful young students who reached out to our daughter. They assisted her with lunch, helped her play tetherball on the playground and came into the special education room to play board games.
It wasn’t long before everywhere our family went in the community, Mimi had a school buddy coming up to give her a hug.
My husband would often ask, “Who was that?” And I’d just smile and say, “I’m not sure about that one. Must be one of her friends from Mrs. Keeling’s class.”
Dixie Frantz
PETALS OF THANKS
One of the most difficult realities about the teaching profession is that we seldom know if we have made a difference. When I become frustrated with my job, my students or myself, I often think back to one particular day of my teaching career.
My first year of teaching was almost over. I taught junior English at Milford High School on a one-year temporary contract, and I worried that I would not be able to find a job the following school year. However, I had a bright and conscientious group of students that year, and I was grateful for that. I made it clear to them that they were special to me and that I would never forget them, my very first students. However, as the end of the school year drew to a close, my students continually asked if the regular teacher would be returning. I answered professionally that, of course, she would be back next year as planned. I tried to respond with little emotion, regardless of their reaction. Deep down, though, I was more bothered by leaving than I admitted.
Inevitably, the day came to give my last final exam. The exam was to begin at the start of school and last the whole morning. I passed the office before the bell rang and saw a couple of the students from my class, and I thought how difficult saying good-bye would be. Theirs was a group with whom I could joke, have fun, share ideas and be serious, all within one class period. Teaching them was a pleasure, and we all had learned a lot that year. But, as successful students do, they were moving on to twelfth grade, and I doubted they would remember much about me after a few more years of their academic careers and busy lives.
Just about this time I was on hall duty outside my classroom, and I noticed the crowds thinning out and classroom doors shutting. I looked in my room to find only two students in attendance. When I commented that it was awfully strange that their classmates were so late, they agreed and then quickly asked to get a drink from the water fountain. Naturally, I allowed them to go since I still needed to wait for the majority of my class to arrive. I looked at my watch and was upset when I noticed the time. A teacher across the hall asked, “Aren’t your students there yet?” When I relayed the situation, he shrugged his shoulders and went back into his own classroom. The hallway was awfully quiet, and I was eager to give that final exam. I walked down the hall several times—to no avail—to see if anyone was coming. My stomach was turning when I thought about what could have happened. Was there an assembly I had forgotten about? Were they watching a fight somewhere that none of the teachers could hear? Did I have the right exam time?
Before I could run back in my classroom to check the schedule, I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I was annoyed that after such a great year with these kids, I would—on their last day with me—have to give them a lecture about responsibility. I sighed and then observed how peaceful the steps were coming toward me. There was no commonly heard loud conversation or resounding laughter. As they rounded the corner and came into sight, the kids were in single file, “shushing” each other with their hands behind their backs. They looked at me with purpose, and then, as they turned to enter my classroom, the first student handed me a single rose. And then the next student did the same. And then the next, and the next, until each student walked into my classroom for the last time. Attached to each long-stemmed rose was a personal message and the signature of that student. Messages said things like: “Thank you for teaching me so much this year,” “I’ll miss you,” and “You’re the greatest.” The roses were all different colors: red, yellow, pink and white hues. I was having trouble holding so many individual flowers, but the last student silently offered me a large basket and a card signed, “With love from your fifth-period class,” and then she went into the room.
I stood alone outside my classroom and tried to wipe the tears from my face. I had to express to them how touched I was by this wonderful gesture, but I did not want to cry in front of my students. It took me several minutes to compose myself. Nevertheless, I took
a deep breath, walked in my room and put the basket of roses on my desk without looking at any of them. I knew they were waiting for my reaction, but I also knew that if I tried to say anything, I would not be able to hide my emotions.
At last, out of the silence came a meek voice, “Are you mad at us, Miss Spengler?” With that, I looked up at my class and surrendered to the tears streaming down my flushed cheeks. My students bounded from their desks and surrounded me with hugs and praise as I tried to voice my thanks through the sobs.
When I catch myself thinking that teaching is a thankless profession, I recall those students and their roses. Though they gave their gratitude in silence, that “thank you” was the loudest and best I have ever received.
Kristin Spengler Zerbe
CONTRIBUTORS
Mike Ashton received his elementary education degree from Arizona State University West in 1998. Mike enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, playing softball, writing, reading and the outdoors. He teaches sixth grade in Magna, Utah. Please reach him at:
[email protected] or
[email protected] R. Lynn Baker has a degree in education and several years of teaching experience. She is a freelance writer and has had work published in devotionals and inspirational books. Lynn lives in Georgetown, Kentucky, with her husband, Andrew, and their two sons, Thomas and Tyler. Please reach her at:
[email protected] Dixie Frantz has written a humorous newspaper column for the past seven years about raising a family in the suburbs. Her column appears in six newspapers in the Houston,Texas area. Dixie enjoys writing, quilting, photography and traveling. Please reach her at
[email protected] kingwoodcable.net.
Steve Goodier is a frequent workshop leader, public speaker, personal coach, business owner, Internet publisher, author of numerous books on inspiration and personal growth, and a church minister. Steve publishes Your Life Support System, a daily electronic newsletter of hope and inspiration with worldwide distribution. His numerous books can be found at www.LifeSupportSystem.com as well as information about his newsletter, speaking engagements and personal coaching. You can also contact him at (877) 344-0989.