Tag Archives: teaching

Just When I Begin to Sink into Despair…

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Just when I begin to sink into despair, something happens that fills me all up with joy and hope. It’s only noon, and already my day has been filled with Good, with the recognition that nothing – absolutely NOTHING – can stop Love from reaching us and blessing us.

A really remarkable thing happened this morning right after I got myself out of bed and dressed. (I had considered just staying there for another hour or two – but this voice told me to get up – that something good was coming!) There was a knock on the door and Scott went to answer it. I heard him talking to a woman, and then I heard him ask the woman if she wanted to talk to me.

I went to the door and saw one of my former eighth graders standing there! Diana had been in my first class of eighth graders in Burlington – back in 1992! I hadn’t seen her for maybe twenty or thirty years! She told me that she’s living in Minnesota now, but she’s home to visit her mom, and she just had to stop in and see me.

And pretty soon we were hugging and crying and it was such a beautiful coming together that my heart just filled up with joy. Diana told me that she’d been wanting to write me, but the words just never came, so she’d decided to talk to me in the person. She told me that her eighth grade year with me had been the most important year in her life and it had stayed with her. She said I’d made a difference in her life – that I’d treated all of my students like I was their mother, and I’d nurtured them like they were my children. She said she’d never had that from a teacher before and it had meant something to her, and she wanted me to know that.

She remembered at the beginning of the school year when I’d invited all the parents and students in to meet me how I’d walked around with my baby (he would have been about nine months then) on my back, and how he’d burped up baby stuff on my shoulder, and how I’d laughed about it. She said she’d never met another teacher like me before. 😃

Diana was a gift from the Cosmos this morning. The love in our space was palpable.

“Despair not; for Love IS with thee.”

The Cosmos Knew What I Needed Today

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Life gave me an incredible gift today.

A month or so ago an old student of mine from Emerson High School texted me to see if we could meet for coffee. I was surprised, but not, to hear from Hector.

I’d been thinking of him – remembering the time we’d been taking turns reading out loud from an astronomy book, and he’d read a passage that said something like: “The stars you see in the night sky are bringing you a story from thousands of years ago.” His head had popped up and his eyebrows had come together in a puzzled frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he’d asked.

I told him that the light we see from the stars took thousands of years to reach us – so we’re not seeing the light from the stars as they are right now – we’re seeing the light from the stars as they were thousands of years ago.

His eyebrows lifted then and his eyes got huge. “WHOAH. That’s CRAZY!” he’d exclaimed. And then he’d started talking about how cool it would be to be an astronaut.

I hadn’t seen Hector for several years and was wondering how he was doing – hoping all was well with him – so when he’d texted out of the blue, it felt like a cosmic coincidence to me.

We arranged to meet today at Whidbey Coffee in Burlington. And oh! It was so good to see Hector again! He is a remarkable young man.

We hugged and I bought us coffees (he told me I didn’t need to buy his coffee for him, but I insisted) and we settled into a couple of comfortable chairs near the window. And for the next two hours we talked and laughed and got caught up. Hector’s life has changed a lot since I last saw him. He felt the need to make a new start for himself and moved to Seattle to work with his brother in carpentry.

He loves his work as a carpenter – he showed me the houses he’d helped build – he said he did everything in building the houses except the drywalling. He’s excited about all he’s learning on his job. He showed me photos and videos from his backpacking trips – he said he found a group of friends in Seattle who introduced him to hiking and rock-climbing – and he’s totally hooked on outdoors adventures now. Last summer, he told me, he hiked 25 miles in one day in the Enchantments. I told him I’d backpacked there years ago with a friend, and remembered how beautiful it was. He showed me his photos from the trip – and his photos showed his talent for capturing the beauty around him.

Then Hector told me that he’s gotten big into jujitsu – trains for competitions – and during the course of his training he discovered one of his favorite sparring partners was a pastor at a church in Seattle. And in connecting with this pastor he found a church community and found God. He was so excited about all he’s learning about God’s love, and so eager to share what he’s learned.

He said one of his favorite passages in the Bible is the one about building your house on sand. When we’d talked about Hector’s carpentry, we’d talked about the importance of a house being “plumb” – if the first floor is plumb, square, and level then the floors above the first floor will be, too. So the parable of the house built on the sand means something to Hector, the carpenter. He said if you build a house on the sand you can keep adding on to it – floor after floor – more and more – and it can be a 10-story house, but if that first floor is built on sand then it’s all going to come down in a windstorm. You need to build your foundation on the rock, he said – on God.

I told him it seemed that God had been leading him to this spiritual place, and he smiled and nodded and agreed. He asked me, then, about my own experience with God – and, for the first time – because he’s no longer my student – I felt free to share my own spiritual journey with him.

I asked Hector what had led him to text me. He thought for a moment and then said that he’d had struggles in high school, hadn’t really liked school until he came to me as a contract-based student, working with me one-on-one. He said he felt heard when he was with me. He felt safe. He felt loved.

I started tearing up then. The Cosmos knew what I needed today – and the Cosmos sent me Hector.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

“Miss Jackson”

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Every summer, the week before school started, my friends and I would ride our bikes out to our local school to look at the class lists taped to the front door that told us what room we’d be in the next year. I was so excited when I learned I was going to get the “new teacher,” Peravena Jackson, for my fifth grade teacher.

Miss Jackson was fresh out of college, and I still remember her clearly – she loved to laugh and explore, and help her students find their super powers, and she had a beautiful smile. When Miss Jackson learned my dad was a well-known mountaineer she asked him if he would help chaperone a ski trip for her class – I still remember her enthusiasm and energy as she went skiing for the first time, and I remember she wore that beautiful smile the entire day. I remember snow flakes in her hair.

Miss Jackson nurtured the good in her students. She gave us opportunities for success. She was the first person to call me a writer – she told the entire class that I was a good writer. That meant something to me. And she knew how to tap into my desire to be the best I could be – she had daily timed quizzes on the multiplication tables and I made it my goal to be quicker each day than I was the day before. By the end of the year I was crowned the “Multiplication Queen” and could do those multiplication sheets in less than a minute. Learning those multiplication tables is something that has helped me my entire life. Miss Jackson built me up and never failed to acknowledge when I did well at something. She was my biggest advocate.

But it wasn’t just ME she nurtured. Miss Jackson – like every great teacher – brought out the best in ALL of her students. She found every student’s gifts and set about helping her students develop those gifts. All the students in her first class – each and every one of them – were blessed to have Miss Jackson for their teacher.

In sixth grade my family moved to a new home two hours away and I lost touch with my old friends and with Miss Jackson for a while. But I never forgot her. And the confidence she’d helped nurture in me stayed with me and got me through some challenging times in my new community. She’d taught me I could trust myself and my own abilities – one of the most valuable gifts anybody can give to another.

I got married when I was 27. It had been 17 years since I’d had Miss Jackson as my teacher – so when she suddenly appeared at the door to the room where I was getting put together for my wedding ceremony, it felt like magic! She gave me a big hug and I could feel her positive, joyful energy wrapping me all up in love on my special day.

For another thirty years we chiefly kept in touch with Christmas cards, but then – fifty years after I’d had “Miss Jackson” for my fifth grade teacher – I found her and two of my old elementary school classmates on Facebook. We messaged each other back and forth and in 2018 my old classmates and Peravena and I were all able to come together and be in the same room for the first time in more than five decades! It was kind of surreal, actually, and very cool!

And now here we are 55 years later. These days I find myself in an age group labeled “elderly” by some folks (which I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around – I still FEEL like I’m a “kid,” you know?). How blessed am I that my “elderly” self still has her fifth grade teacher mentoring her through the ups and downs of life? Peravena Jackson Wilson continues to inspire me and nurture the good in me. She has this uncanny ability to know just when I need an encouraging word – just when I’m starting to doubt myself and what I’m doing here, she’ll pop onto my FB wall and leave a comment that lifts me back up. Yesterday “Miss Jackson” popped onto my wall to leave me this message: “I think of you and your written thoughts when I need a positive outlook on a negative situation. Thanks again for your thoughtful written words!!” And see? Right there. My fifth grade teacher can STILL make me feel like my life has meaning and purpose, and that I matter to her. That is what great teachers do.

Great teachers never stop teaching and nurturing the good in their students – and “Miss Jackson” is one of the world’s great teachers. I’m so grateful I got to be in her fifth grade class all those years ago. And I’m so grateful I’m still connected to her today.

(The author is second from the left and “Miss Jackson” is second from the right.)

I’ll Never Forget You

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I retire from teaching this week. I’ve been clearing out my space at school and came upon some notes and messages from my days as a teacher at Allen and Edison and West View that have brought tears to my eyes – I’m getting all choked up here. I have been blessed with such wonderful students in my career – kind and courageous and dear. I want to share some of what I’ve found this week – I want my students to know that their notes and kind words and art have stayed with me and meant a lot to me. I’ll never forget you. 

 

The “Lasts”

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“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
– Dr. Seuss

This week I’ve found myself being conscious of all the “lasts” – the last time I’ll ever do an algebra problem with a student; the last time I’ll do symmetrical art with a student; the last time I’ll teach a student how to recognize when a paragraph can be split into two; the last time I’ll talk about trench warfare, and the drummer boys in the Civil War, and why civilizations start around rivers; the last time I’ll say good-bye to my students at the end of a school year…

Whoah.

Suspended in Time Between Teacher and Student

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So here’s a cool thing: I’m sitting at my table at school, working with one of my favorite students, when my cellphone rings. It is my fifth grade teacher, Peravena! Last night I’d found her phone number and called her and left a message – and now she’s calling me back!

I hadn’t heard from Peravena, nor seen her, for probably 30 years – it was amazing to hear her voice again! As I’m telling her what having her as a teacher meant to me – and the impact she had on my life – I’m looking at my student’s face and I find myself tearing up. I feel suspended in time between my teacher and my student.

It was cosmic.

That is all. Carry on then..

There is magic in teaching…

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teaching

“Academics of the right sort…”

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When I read last year that a group of politicians in Texas had built into their platform their opposition to the teaching of critical thinking skills in the public schools of Texas, I assumed, at first, this was something The Onion, a satirical magazine, had cooked up. But nope. These words were actually written into the 2012 platform for the Republican party of Texas: “Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.” http://www.texasgop.org/about-the-party

Yeah. I know. I was a little appalled, too, when I first saw that.  I mean, what the…?! I tried to imagine how I, as a teacher, could possibly AVOID teaching critical thinking skills – I think I would have to work really hard to try not to teach while I was teaching.

About the same time, another interesting tidbit of news crossed my path: “Students in New York City’s public schools cramming for tests can delete words like birthdays, junk food, Halloween, dinosaur and even dancing from study lists. References to such words have been banned from city-issued tests in an edict issued by the city’s Department of Education for fear the words could “appear biased” or “evoke unpleasant emotions” in students.” (reported by Katie Kindelan on http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/03/nyc-bans-halloween-birthdays-aliens-and-more-on-school-tests/

Okay. So. Yeah. Let’s not make reference to dinosaurs because…? Maybe children will start actually asking questions about dinosaurs? And this could lead to (gasp) the study of evolution? And maybe make students think. And ponder. And ask more questions. And stuff. Holy shamoley.  We should not be afraid of our students searching for answers. We should not be afraid of our students FINDING the answers, either. This is a good thing. A deeper understanding of the world should be something we, as a society, celebrate, not try to stunt.

To be honest, it’s hard to be surprised by much that’s going on in education anymore.

When I was told by a school administrator that I could no longer do (and I quote) “all those great, fun things you do in the classroom – inviting in Holocaust survivors to share their experiences, having the students research and dress up as famous characters in history, all those special projects and things you do” – I guess that was the moment when I realized I no longer belonged in a public school classroom.  I’ve actually written a book about my own, individual experiences in public educaton – http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Teaching-Rambling-Schoolmarm-ebook/dp/B006NKNEAY –  (written under a pen name). And, after sharing my book with others, I’ve discovered that the tale in my book is a common one, and the theme universal.

Public education in America is in a terrible crisis right now. Most of the people making decisions about education policy are not classroom teachers themselves, and seem to know little or nothing about how to actually teach. Many of these policy-makers seem to view education as a business – a corporation – and students as “products.” There seems to be a desire by these policy-makers to squeeze all the healthy, nutrient-rich juices out of education, and compress and quantify learning into some kind of data sheet with a check list for objectives met, and a detailed script for teachers to follow in their teaching.

But the thing is… well, the thing is that teaching is as much an “art” as a “science.”  Good teachers are not automatons. Good teachers know how to adapt and adjust quickly to the needs of their students. They recognize, intuitively, that there are times when they need to throw out the checklists, pacing guides, and scripts, and follow where their students are leading them – to a place of learning that’s meaningful for them. Good teachers know that meaningful lessons are lessons students actually remember because it touches who they are as human beings and individuals.  Meaningful learning is learning that will serve students beyond their years of school – beyond the standardized tests and checklists and bureaucratic balance sheets – and help them their entire lives.

In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, thought passes naturally from effect back to cause. Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal.”

Teaching children HOW to think, not WHAT to think – giving them “food for thought” – nourishing their young minds with learning that is meaningful to them, and will serve them throughout their lives – this, I think, is what teaching should be about. Teaching students to ask “why?” and to separate fact from opinion – teaching them to be critical thinkers – this, I believe, is essential to being a valuable citizen of a democracy. And “observation, invention, study, and original thought” are necessary skills for our citizens to have if mankind is going to move forward and survive the challenges ahead.

“The normal education system takes precisely twelve years to graduate a normal student from public school. Normal education is built around a standard curriculum, one size must fit all. Get too far ahead and you stress us out – cut it out, kid. Get too far behind and we fail you, reprocess you, give you another chance to get with the program…And so the factory-for-the-production-of-normal works overtime to sanitize and corporatize and discipline our kids into normalcy.” – from We’re All Weird, by Seth Godin.