Some encounters leave a permanent mark

Working in schools is a higher calling, and I am dismayed to see hundreds of thousands of teachers leaving the profession I lived and loved for over five decades. It’s more than troubling because it is the children who give us hope.

I’m long retired, but I still feel that old familiar ache in my heart when summer vacation is over and it’s back to school time. I’m no longer answering the bell, but I’m quite sure some things haven’t changed. On the first day of school, kids will wonder where the heck the summer went; parents will feel no guilt about breathing a deep sigh of relief; and teachers will look out at a sea of freshly scrubbed faces that have just become “my kids.”

When my own children were growing up, it was nice to have summers together because, as a teacher of tweens and teens, I got way too caught up in helping other people’s kids not only survive adolescence but thrive. Every now and then, my own offspring would jolt me back to reality.

Jina: Mom, just once, can you please turn off the teacher switch? Oops.

Jeremy: Sometimes I think you love those kids more than you love us. Ouch.

A lot of people think teachers spend the summer at the beach. Not me. Even though I wasn’t at school doing work, I was doing schoolwork. I served on endless faculty committees (mostly ignored); updated or created curriculum to meet constantly changing state mandates (waste of time); mastered the latest shiny new thing the principal guaranteed would turn every kid into an angelic learning machine (yeah, right); and read every book I could in search of the one that would pique the interest of a “reluctant” reader (bingo).

For me, the school year started the middle of August. If nothing else, I am organized, so I carefully prepared for that critical first day when the kids would arrive with new clothes, new haircuts, and new adolescent behaviors, ready to meet their new English teacher. I was at school every day, getting my ducks in a row. Sometimes, a prospective duckling would come around to map out the best route to their classes. Most encounters were meet-and-greets that consisted of a bashful hello, a rudimentary check-her-out, and a hasty retreat. Sometimes they made a lasting impression.

I recall one such incident, which left a permanent mark. I was putting the finishing touches to my Great Authors bulletin board when there she was, a cute, bright-eyed, 12-year-old. She came bouncing into my classroom with what can only be described as panache.

“I’m Marilyn, as in Monroe,” she said with a very confident flair. “I’m going to be a famous actress, like Marilyn was.”

Now this was amusing; I rarely saw such poise in seventh-grade girls. “I like English,” she said, “but you won’t like me.”

Say what? She had definitely commanded my full attention. “Teachers don’t like me because I say what I think, not what they think I should think or what they are trying to make me think.”

Oh, I see. Well, Marilyn as in Monroe, I think that’s wonderful, just like your big dreams. In fact, I think I like you already.

The rest is history or rather English, which she was very good at. Her real name wasn’t Marilyn, of course. It was Rachel, but she was definitely a star in my classroom galaxy. She kept me on my toes the entire year.

In June, we both had tears in our eyes as we hugged each other goodbye. She surprised me by returning to school the next day as I was packing up for the summer. She had a small beautifully wrapped gift. I hope you like it; it’s why I want to be a teacher, just like you. I opened the package to find a miniature chalkboard with one of my favorite quotes: “To teach is to touch a heart forever.”

That works both ways, Rachel. Both ways.

Kathleen Marsh is a lifelong educator, writer, and community advocate. She has published eight books, four on the history of Townsend, where she and husband Jon are happily retired on the beautiful Townsend Flowage.