The Absence of Wind on a Crystal Clear Lake or Happy Birthday Ms. G

Since Helen was a year and a half old and Lauren a year, they have been in one form of school or another.  There was Mother's Day out, preschool, public school in Plano, a charter school in Richardson, and now a public school in Allen.  Once you put your child into "the system" you come face to face with the reality of underpaid, overworked, tired, frustrated, over managed teachers.  As if this was not enough, they end up providing a ridiculous amount of supplies to the class room.  Every parent who has winced at the $60 -$70 worth of beginning of the year supplies should feel the pain of a teacher who looks around mid September and realizes, her classroom of kids who had fresh beautiful supplies 3 weeks ago are running dangerously low.  I have one chronic looser of pencils and one who goes through paper like I go through Cheetos.  All the hours I spent encouraging my toddlers to express themselves artistically accidentally transformed them into mindless supply eating zombies.

Elementary teachers have some well of patience and love that keeps them functioning at extraordinary levels in the classroom.    But they have another well, one of anger and resentment that is sometimes hard to keep contained outside the classroom.  It is heart breaking to watch talented classroom teachers wither under administrative bureaucracy that has lost touch with the magic experienced in the classroom.  I saw this more in the charter school than anywhere else.  Teachers were being paid $10,000 a year less but with the project based learning, their planning was twice as long.

We parents don't always help morale either.  We mean to, of course.  We talk about how much we support our teachers.  Some of us donate time, others supplies.  But.....there are those pesky tests.  The ones a good many of us are revolting against.  And the new partial absence policy after 8:15 rule.  And the fact that if you forget your driver's license, on a day you forgot to get lunch up, until 2 minutes before your kid's designated lunch time, well you are just S.O.L.  After all, you wouldn't want to jeopardize their safety, never-mind that low blood sugar.  Oh, and while we are on the subject of blood sugar don't even think about the bad last century habit of bringing birthday cupcakes to your kid's class.  This is nutritional treason.   Henceforth there will be birthday pencils!  Which does a nice job of circling the conversation back to replenishing supplies.  The point is, even after meaning to support the teachers, we often get so pissy with school policy that it leaks into our interactions with the teachers.  There is an undercurrent of disgruntled flowing through public schools that threatens to reach flood levels soon.

It is for this reason that I was unprepared for Lauren's 2nd grade teacher.  You get use to the current.  Its absence is as noticeable as the absence of wind on a crystal clear lake.  I noticed right away though I hadn't yet identified it as absence of current.  I just assumed it was young can do attitude. One day in the car pool line after only a couple days of school, she made a point to come up to my car and discreetly let me know Lauren had had an accident.  I cringed.  Last year's teacher had cringed.  I expected this teacher to cringe.  Instead, I got, "Don't worry, I have a plan for this.  From now on when Lauren goes to the resource room she will go to the bathroom first."  There has not been another accident since that day.  We had a few other hiccups in those first few weeks and this young, fresh faced woman deftly handled all of them.  She knew Lauren had never participated in the classroom before.  Her solution: create a small group where Lauren would be a critical part of the group where her participation is a goal of the group.  Everyone is rewarded when Lauren uses her loud and proud voice.  This makes everyone love to interact with her and she with them.  Brilliant.  She knew Lauren can't write more than a few words to participate in classroom work.  Her solution: Have Lauren tell her what she wants to write.  The teacher writes it as Lauren says it, then Lauren writes it and she is graded in a way that we can all see how much of the lessons are being comprehended.  I am the most amazingly proud Mom knowing that my child who I had thought incapable is consistently making strong C's, some B's and the occasional A (Insert me doing a happy dance).  And so the year has proceeded until wa la, first 9 week teacher/parent conferences.

You get 15 minutes for a teacher/parent conference.  Not a lot of time.  I try not to load up on coffee because my mouth is not the one that needs to run.  This is time to be quiet and hear the heartbeat of your child's day.

I sit down in the very small chair.  I am very aware of its smallness.  I realize how at home the teacher is in the other small chair.  Of course, she sits here with them, it is her day home.  She smiles the dazzling smile that is reserved for magical second grade teachers, genuine, warm but confident and strong.  "I want you to know that Lauren has the absolute right teacher this year.  I decided in 2nd grade that I wanted to be a 2nd grade teacher.  This is what I have always wanted to do.  I was pulled just like Lauren to go to the resource room from 4th grade on.  She doesn't like to be pulled, she doesn't like to leave the classroom but I told her I did it to and went to my resource teacher Ms. Rose and she helped me reach my goals.  I asked the children their goals.  Lauren wants to go to Fairy college to be a Fairy.  Ms. McGurk, I want you to know I know someone who grew up to be a fairy.  She is a tooth fairy and she goes to schools talking to kids about health and taking care of their teeth and she loves her job.  Lauren can absolutely be a fairy if that is her passion and the fact that she is willing to go to college.  Did you notice that?"  She proceeds to take 20 minutes instead of the allowed 15 to tell me lots of things.  She is missing class on Friday for a personal day, the first one she has taken in her 5 years of teaching but it is for a wedding, but she hates to leave her class...  What I heard was what every parent wants to hear from a teacher.  She loves her class.  She believes in Lauren.  She wants with all her heart to teach my child without trying to turn her into someone she is not.  She is teaching the class to accept who they are and others even if they are different.  Most importantly, for me, I could tell she wants Lauren to believe in Lauren.  I also heard and felt someone living her dream.  All the things that are negative about school melt in the presence of such a person.

When I turned to leave I hugged this teacher.  I don't do that.  I know she is use to the kids hugging her but I am not so sure she is use to parents spontaneously breaking into a hug.  There was no other way to express how overwhelmed I was to be in presence of someone with such a strong, tender, persevering heart.  A teacher's heart.