Ode to the Elementary Teacher

Okay, so it's not really an ode. More like some post of appreciation- to some of the best teachers I know. The ones who helped me raise my son. I have a deep appreciation for the content specialists of secondary school. I work in one now with some very special people, and I hold dear some of the most amazing women who I write and share with, who are high school and middle school teachers. But the very reasons I was ready to say goodbye to teaching in elementary, are the very reasons that make elementary teachers so special.

I spent some time tonight reading a book about teaching. I have a meeting with a PLC (professional learning community) tomorrow where we'll be discussing the latest chapter. The chapter is about building character and trust, and it made me think back on some of my best and worst teaching moments. As I reflected on my teaching experiences, I got to thinking about all of the amazing teachers my son has had over the years, and the lessons we learned from them as a family. Not discounting the impact of his middle and high school teachers- some of them incredible, others not so much- his elementary school teachers were special. There's just something about the elementary school teacher. Having been one for almost 10 of my teaching years, I can see the wonder from both perspectives. A mom away from home, a caretaker for most of a young child's waking hours, the elementary teacher spends more time with the children in her class than any other person in their lives during those years. And those kiddos... it often feels like they are your own, and when my son was with these women, I never worried about his well-being.

Teachers today face criticism and cynicism, people shame them in one breath and praise them in another. They are beat down, worn out, and they still come back for more everyday. Today, I'd like to pay homage to the ones who helped shape my kid. Here they are and the lessons we've taken from our time with them.

Angie Calvacca, known lovingly to her pre-schoolers as Miss Angie, was my son's Pre-k and Jr. K teacher. Angie worked as a pre-school teacher while she finished her teaching degree/certification, and she was lucky enough to have my blabber mouth Jacob for two years! When he and several of his peers finished pre-k and did not make the age cut-off for kindergarten, our private school decided to group them together for a Jr. K class. They were in-betweeners, and since Angie did so great with them for pre-k, they could have easily hung with the "big boys" in kindergarten. No complaints here, because we all know boys can use a little extra time to mature. By the time Jacob had spent the first year with Angie, he was practically reading already. Another year with her and it made kindergarten a snap! Angie laughed with my kid so much, he just loved spending the day with her. She was the first one outside our family to point out to me that Jacob's sense of humor at such an early age was a sign of high intelligence. She wasn't kidding! I was lucky enough to have Angie work for me later on when I became a principal. She's still teaching elementary school in Broward County, and I bet she is as beloved there as she was when Jacob had her. Thank you for a great beginning Angie.

Mrs. Catena at Citrus Cove Elementary was the first of Jacob's two kindergarten teachers. We relocated twice within a year because of some things that went on in our jobs and with extended family, so Jacob started there in Boynton Beach. It was his first experience with public school, and I remember hearing at open house that Palm Beach County was the largest growing per capita district in the state. It made me a little nervous, but Jacob took to Mrs. Catena right away (I don't remember her 1st name but she's still at Citrus Cove!). He only attended school there for the first half of the year, but I remember two things about her. The first is that she insisted Jacob be referred for gifted screening (Angie was right). The second is that she taught me to talk to Jacob about tact. She approached me in the carpool line sometime late in November to inform me that Jacob, a Jewish kid who happened to also be pretty intelligent and insightful, was insisting to one of his classmates that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. I was so embarrassed! Imagine, the Jewish kid in class, spoiling Christmas for all his friends. In the car on the way home he insisted, "Mommy, I think that parents are trying to trick their kids and that they are really the ones buying the presents." That was a tough lesson for me and for him, and Mrs. Catena handled it with such grace.

The second half of the year, I became principal at a private school and we gave Jacob the choice to stay or move with me. He stayed for a little while and then decided to move with me to Chesterbrook Academy, where he had his second kindergarten teacher, Donna Persner. Two very important things stand out to me about Mrs. Persner. She was a huge self-esteem builder. She referred to her classroom as a community of friends and personally greeted every child at the door, with "Good morning, Beautiful," or "Good morning, Handsome." She has a very strong sense of classroom citizenship and community. The second, and very important thing, was she taught Jacob it was okay to make mistakes. He was quite the perfectionist (still is in many ways), right down to getting angry if one of his shoes was untied. But where it really surfaced was in the classroom. He would erase and erase so hard that he would tear his papers and then pitch a fit. What did Mrs. Persner do? She took all the erasers off his pencils! He was only allowed to use pencils with no eraser, and she told him, "If you make a mistake, just put a single line through it a move on." That was a tough adjustment, but eventually it worked! Something so simple, but so important for an intelligent 6 year old who could not stand imperfection.

First grade brought the beloved, Ms. Gary Owens. Ms. Owens was all about bringing out the creativity in the busy little children in her care. She played the guitar in class, sang with the kids, did tons of hands-on projects, and seemed to have a true love for young children. They would make up silly songs, have creative ways to remember important aspects of a lesson. I remember she taught them to call bananas, ba-nay-nays so they would always remember how to spell it. They would sing that song, Apples and Bananas and all the kids would say ba-nay-nays. For months and months, Jacob would say things like, "Ms. Owens said..." or "Ms. Owens has a song about that." First grade was F-U-N!

TIMELINE INTERUPTION:
Oh boy, second grade started off rough. We pulled Jacob out of the private school because we were getting ready to move and I was no longer working there. Knowing we would be leaving Labor Day weekend, we didn't want to start him in the school and then pull him out 2 weeks later. But, legally we had to have him enrolled in school so we registered him at the local elementary school a few blocks from the house we were living in prior to moving. Not getting into details, we went to open house, Jacob started school, and in the first week we pulled him out and just kept him home with us until the move. His teacher was going to be out the entire first week because she was taking her son to college. There was a sub, and we were far from impressed with the school. I'll leave it at that.

Labor Day weekend came quickly and we moved to Lehigh Acres where out realtor told us, "You just have to try to get into Mirror Lakes. Don't be surprised if you don't get in because my daughter is on a waiting list." For readers who don't know, our school district is a school choice district, which means you select your choices by rank and cross your fingers you get the school you want. Where you live has only a minor impact on where you're placed. Lucky us, he got in. MLE was a top choice school in our zone when we moved here, and we were pleased it all worked out.

Second grade at Mirror Lakes was interesting. Classes were grouped based on abilities and levels- it was the time when the standardized testing movement was gaining major ground. Having been in a private school the two years prior, I never realized the intensity of it. But, they did placement testing with Jacob and he was put in the "high class," with none other than Mrs. Kimberly Schmidt. New to the area, and commuting out of county for work, I was not particularly involved in the school community. Jacob was doing well academically, and struggling with little boy behaviors like staying in his seat and not talking. Why I say little boy behaviors I don't know, because I had the same problems as a kid! He was refusing to do handwriting papers and pulling apart erasers into itty bitty pieces. I found this all out on a phone call with Mrs. Schmidt one night, when I was home alone with Jacob because my husband was working back on the east coast. We were talking through the issues when I heard a blood curdling scream from the bathroom! Jacob had slipped in the shower and busted his chin on the bathtub. There was blood everywhere and I was freaking out. We were barely there a couple of months and I had no idea where the closest hospital was. Mrs. Schmidt tried to help but wasn't sure where to send me so we hung up and I dealt with it. She knew he likely would not be in school the next day, or would at least be late.

Strangely, that night opened up communication between Kim and me. Soon after, she found out I was an educator. We talked more- about Jacob and about school. We are still friends today. But two major things stand out with me about Kim. She was(still is) an excellent teacher. She takes her work very seriously and holds very close to her the responsibility for teaching the kids in her care. I've said this many times before to Kim and to others, Jacob learned from her that a teacher can be strict and consistent with expectations, and still be nice and caring to her students. She struck the perfect balance in my eyes. He understood from her that she loved him and could laugh and have fun with him, without lowering her expectations for his academics or his behavior. The second important thing she did for him was make him feel included. Since we moved to the west coast of Florida, Jacob has almost always been the only Jewish kid in his class. Often, he is the only Jewish kid in his school. Mrs. Schmidt's husband is Jewish and she was always sensitive to the various holidays, and once even invited her husband in during a craft day to do a Chanukah activity with Jacob while the others were doing something Christmas. I don't expect all of his teachers to do that kind of thing, but for an 8 year old new to the community, it was a really nice gesture.

3rd grade was different. Jacob switched schools to go into a full time gifted program, and his teacher was lovely. However, she confided in me she was sort of forced to teach gifted because she had the endorsement and the principal asked her to do it. She was having a rough year personally, as her husband had suddenly died. Jacob didn't really like the school, and I wasn't happy either. Nothing personal, but nothing really stands out as special. I felt badly to hear a year or two ago that she passed as well.

Then there was 4th grade. Who would have known at the time that Mrs. Lisa Van Houten would later become my teammate! After getting over the giggles for his teacher having the same name as Millhouse, Jacob had an exciting year in Mrs. Van Houten's class! I have got to hand it to her. She had a class of, I think it was 27 or 28 of the highest performing 4th graders in the school. At least 25% of them were in the gifted program, and holy moly, was that class full. When you walked into the room the brains and personalities were larger than life. I don't know how she did it. But she taught all those kids to write, even Jacob who hated to write passed his state writing exam. What I remember most about Jacob's time in her class? She accepted him for who he was and embraced his personality, never trying to tame him into something he wasn't. I think she was even more forgiving than I was. I could go on about Lisa as a colleague because two years after Jacob was in her class, I joined the 4th grade team at MLE. Lisa is somewhat quiet and unassuming, but she strives for excellence and takes to heart her charge of turning 4th graders into authors.

Finally, there was 5th grade. The last year of elementary school, of the self-contained classroom in which students have a home away from home. This was when I would need someone to carry the torch Kimberly Schmidt lit. I needed Jacob to be held to high standards and strict guidelines, because middle school was going to be tough, and boy was it! Jacob had two teachers, one for math and science, the other for language arts and social studies. Ms. Alexis Androsko, who the next year got married and became Mrs. Gobel, was the math and science teacher. New to teaching and quite young, Jacob related to her sense of wonder about science, and her interest in his music and movie interests. This would later become a huge part of how Jacob related (and still does) to teachers. Language arts and social studies was Mrs. Michelle Joyce. Michelle loved out of the box teaching, and she had a reputation for being allowed to try things because the principal trusted her. Parents often requested to have their kids put in her class, and I was no exception. Michelle could banter with kids and hug on them one minute and back them into line with a death stare the next. Like Kim, she had a skillful way of balancing the fun and the serious. She did Colonial America simulation activities, but also celebrated National Cookie Day. Admittedly, we would hear around school from kids who said she was really strict, and I asked Jacob after the first week of 5th grade what he thought. He reported back that those kids must behave badly in class because he didn't see it. Tuche, Jacob. Michelle was good at reworking seating arrangements to prevent over-socialization but also to teach kids who didn't get along how to tolerate each other. Though he wasn't always an angel, Michelle appreciated Jacob's wit and allowed him to be funny until he crossed the line. Then, she'd just back his little butt up!

All of these women, truly amazing. All of them, still teaching. Never once did any of them over-do the his mom is a teacher card. Even when I worked in the same school, I would tell them I'm not the mom who will stop by 100 times a day because I work in the same building. You'll only hear from me if it's a necessity or because you've asked for something. I held true to that, I was hands off. they were all fair and professional and never treated Jacob differently because his mom was a teacher or the principal.

Elementary teachers are surrogate mommies. They know what bus their students ride, what allergies they have, whether they bring lunch or buy lunch. They often know what their students' favorite colors are, what their favorite singers or bands are, and who their favorite authors are. They know whether they dance or play soccer and how to comfort them when they're not feeling well. Sometimes they're knocked for not being content specialists, and I only have one response to that. They are content specialists, they are childhood specialists. They balance caring with academic learning. They balance behavior expectations with academic expectations. They balance child development with academic achievement.  There is nothing elementary about it.