A fond farewell to Mr. E

I mentioned we had to say a sad good-bye to Grace's 4th grade teacher.  I know teachers come and go and people come in and out of your life too.  For the most part, I have come to accept that to be natural and I don't get too worked up about most of it these days.  But, this one left a sting.

Mr. Emery was exactly, one of those teachers, whom you just pray your kids get to experience sometime in their educational careers.  He was already on my "cool" list before Grace landed in his 4th grade home-room.  Harriet had taken his after-school photography class when she was in kindergarten the year before.  I was so worried about her doing that.  She had such a hard time going to school that year and was so nervous in new settings and did not like doing anything where I wasn't nearby.  It was huge for her to have to go to something else, AFTER being at school for 7 hours already, knowing I wouldn't be coming for her until dinner time.  It was really hard for her to go to a class where she didn't know anyone, there were kids from other grades, and an unfamiliar teacher.  Thankfully though, that teacher was Mr. Emery.  He gave her exactly what she needed - just enough interaction to make her feel comfortable, just enough encouragement to let her know he cared, and just enough space that she didn't freak out.  He tried in vain, for the entire semester, to get her to speak to him, but let it all be on her terms, never forcing her.  She would respond to him very minimally, but by the end of the year, she was waving good-bye to him at pick-up and might have even smiled once or twice.  She knew he cared about her though and that made all the difference.  She will still talk about being in Mr. E's photography class, and was very looking forward to 4th grade when she would get to be in his math class.

Grace was hoping for his 4th grade home-room because she knew he ran the Geek Squad at the school.  She COULD NOT WAIT to apply for it.  She knew his love of all things geeky with healthy side dishes of science, nature, and math, would be right up her alley.  She squealed with glee when she saw her name on his class list before school started - she knew it would be an epic year, and she was right.

I still remember the feeling of my stomach sinking when Mr. Emery pulled me aside last fall to tell me that he was so sorry, because he knew that Grace would be incredibly disappointed- the Geek Squad would not be taking applications this year.  His reason was even worse - that he would be leaving the teaching profession altogether and moving out-of-state in May.  WHAT?  It was a huge blow for me.  We had just lost our incredible principal.  I was still reeling from that and as parents, we could not fathom how our school could ever be the same without her.  I love my kids' school and I have always believed in it and felt that it had something special going for it.  But, losing our principal did darken those feelings.  Now, we were losing one of our best teachers too?  It doesn't take very many hits like that to see huge ripple effects start to happen.  I've worked in schools.  I know what happens when you start to lose your leadership and your core guts and identity.  I worry constantly who else will follow them out.  I'm still wondering if we will fully recover.  The jury is still out.

Mr. Emery did at least, try to go out with a bang.  I have never seen a teacher put into a school year, what he put into this one.  At least, I feel very lucky, that Grace got to experience that kind of dedication and devotion from a teacher to his students.  It was quite possibly most, if not all, of the reason she has returned to the kind of student she used to be:  one who LOVES school, who can't wait to go the next day (most days), who looks forward to doing her work, who finds her school work challenging, fulfilling, and meaningful, and who doesn't want to miss a day when she's sick (instead of relishing being able to stay home from school when possible.)  She was that kind of student in kinder and 1st grade.  Even our traumatizing move from her beloved school in Boston didn't wipe it out of her.  Her 1st grade teacher here was a life-saver and carried her through the rest of the year.  But, her incredibly bad experience with a long-term sub in 2nd grade, coupled with an "ok" 3rd grade year left her just like most kids are - indifferent about school most of the time, and hating the rest.  Sure, she's always kept up her grades in spite of it, but her attitude about school has been on a serious downward spiral for a couple of years.  In my mind, it was only a matter of time before her grades and her education reflected her attitude.  Mr. Emery saved her from it.

Consequently, whenever he asked for something for his class, I volunteered immediately.  If he was going to work this hard for my kid (and not just my kid - he worked that hard for every kid,) then I was willing to work as hard as possible for him and his class.  Of course, you get the most out of the things you put the most into, so Grace and I got a lot out of the year.  She got an amazing education.  She was challenged, she was held to high standards, she was kindly and respectfully reprimanded when she stepped out of line (something most teachers aren't willing to do or simply let slide when it comes to the "smart" kids), she was given more responsibility and freedom as a student and a kid, and she rose to the occasion.  I remember a conversation early in the year when I had written in her agenda "please send Grace to the library after school, she doesn't ride the bus today."  It was standard practice (so far) at the school to give teachers that kind of information.  He came to me and said "I don't need to know where Grace is going after school.  Grace needs to know."  I apologized and said I just wanted to make sure he was in the loop as all of her teachers had wanted to know up until now - I wasn't sure when the teachers turned that over to the kids.  He said "that would be THIS year."  From that point, I knew he would treat her more like the grown up kid she was becoming and I would be required to do the same.  He helped me let go and realize that she was quite capable of navigating, a bunch of things I hadn't even considered, on her own.  He helped her grow up as a kid and helped me grow up as a parent.  But, he also gave me great comfort in knowing that he slyly "helicoptered" over his own 2nd grader.  I loved watching him sneak downstairs to say hi to his son between recess and class and be there for everything he did.  He is a great dad and it made him an even better teacher.

He is also a great friend.  He took genuine interest in our family, what were our plans for the weekend, what was going on in our lives.  He continued to work on Harriet for the entire year, trying to get her to speak to him or smile at him.  He watched out for her education at school too.  She wasn't even his student, but he would warn me of things going on at school, give me a heads up about possibilities and opportunities for her, and give his honest opinion about how to best navigate the school in Harriet's future.  Those insights and honesty are worth more than gold in my book.

I dreaded May.  Of course, the school year flew by as we worked hard in a flurry to make it awesome.  May arrived sooner than it ever has before.  We held a 4th grade picnic for Mr. E and invited his geek squad families to help us send him off.  Some of my very most favorite things I have ever received are thank you letters from former students.  They make you feel like the gigantic sacrifices in teaching might just be all worth it and help you realize that someone did notice what you did for them.  I tried to recreate that for Mr. E and we had a secret letter box set up for a month for students to write "thank you" and "favorite Mr. E memory" letters to him.  We put them all in a book and gave it to him at the picnic along with a few other fun gifts.

We are so glad that he seems genuinely happy on his new adventure with his family in Oregon and it appears to have been a good life change for them.  (We are following each other on facebook now.)  However, we are very sorry for us and our school, that we have lost an incredible teacher and friend.  I think out of everyone who was sad to see him go (and the list is very long - I'm not the only one who knew his value), Harriet might have been the saddest.  She knows what she will now be missing, not only from her 4th grade year, but from her daily life at school.  We are praying that the teacher who takes his place can even just be half as good.

Thanks, Mr. E, for everything.  Like Adrienne's mom said to me a few days before... "You'll never KNOW!  The influence of a TEACHER!"  We're pretty sure his influence will be felt for a long time.

(Mr. E in line with the kids playing kickball - waiting for his turn.)

(Mr. E and Grace)

ENDOFSCHOOLSHENANIGANS-AKAMAYNEARLYDOESMEIN

With both kids in elementary school, May feels exactly like a really really long run-on-sentence.  No punctuation, no spaces.  It has replaced the Christmas holiday season as the busiest one in our household.  In just a few weeks' time we pile onto our already busy schedule: jog-a-thon, field trips, play days (field days), book fair, teacher appreciation week, end-of-year picnics, school projects, the spelling bee (is it sad I wasn't sad that my kids didn't do the spelling bee?), and the talent show!  It's all incredibly fun and mostly worthwhile, but it's kind of feast or famine.  I wish we could spread it out a bit more.   I guess it really wouldn't matter, but whew... don't know if I've ever been so glad to see the end of a school year (in a good way.)  I think I might have taken pictures of half of it. 

Jog-a-thon

Harriet ran 7 laps.

Mr. Emery ran ? laps.  I cannot believe he came to school on his day off to run laps with the kids.

Grace ran 8 laps. 

 3 Field Trips in 2 weeks' time:  Natural History Museum and Symphony for Grace, and a play at Pope Joy for Harriet.

I have to admit, I totally enjoyed the 4th graders at the museum.  

This is collectively an awesome group of kids.

"Play Day" = old school field day = see if we can freeze the kids to death by soaking them to the bones and making them stand outside for 2 full hours in the chilly ABQ spring wind.

Paper Airplane Day in Math: I was thrilled, actually, to spend 4 hours at school doing this.  I think a teacher who assigns over 100 4th graders to make a paper airplane, then has the kids throw them down the hall 4 times each (I was there to record their flying distances,) and then make a 2 day math lesson out of it, is like, super cool.  The kids had a total blast doing it.  The vice principal walked by just as one was thrown and smiled as it whizzed by her face.  I love our school.  I might love it a little less when he is not there next year.

Speaking of cool stuff in math class... Mr. Emery assigned Grace, and a few of the other advanced math students, to do a giant self-guided math project/presentation.  They chose their own topics, created the requirements for their projects, and then outlined, designed, and completed the project, mostly unaided.  Grace chose to compare some of the measurements of planets in our solar system (volumes, distances from the sun, areas of their orbits, orbital velocities, etc.)  She worked on it for weeks at school and then spent a long 7 hours on a Saturday finishing up calculations and putting it all into a power point presentation.  She graphed all of her data using Excel spreadsheets and charts.  She even learned scientific notation and how to use a scientific calculator to do the calculations (something that some of my sophomore chem students used to struggle with!)  I have never seen her work so hard on something or be more excited about doing a school project.  I was so proud of her and so glad I got to see her present to her class.

Talent Show!  I am still floored that both girls made it into the show.  So many kids tried out.  I was so nervous for both of them, but especially for Harriet.  The Friday I knew they would get their "letters" I nearly couldn't bring myself to meet them at the bus stop for fear of what their faces would look like as they stepped off.  Thankfully, they both jumped down, GRINNING!  It was so exciting.  We had tons of rehearsal time added into already crazy weeks, but it was so worth it.  They both accomplished a lot and performed so well.  Harriet did an Irish Dance with her friends from dance class, and Grace played "All Apologies" by Nirvana on her electric guitar.  Proud momma moment.  

Videos!  I think I figured out my video problems, but I did have to shrink their sizes so if you full-screen it the quality won't be as good.  Enjoy the talent show:

Harriet

Irish Dance

(with friends Ava, Mylee, and Kayla)

Grace

All Apologies by Nirvana

some sneaky family time

I added an extra day and a half to my quick wedding trip so that I could hang with the fam.  My grandma came up from Cedar City for Mother's day, so once again, I got lucky enough to be with all the women in my family at the same time:  my mom, both of my grandmothers, and all of my sisters.

We gifted each other a "free pass" for Mother's Day.  Usually, we all (including sisters) try to do something thoughtful for each other on Mother's Day.  Not that we don't enjoy it, and some of my favorite Mother's Day presents have actually come from my mom and my sisters (of course, as well as my kids and David.)  Emily has surprised me with incredible flowers on more than one Mother's Day.  But, this year... we gave each other a pass from having to be creative and invent something new.  We decided we'd rather spend time together as much as anything, so we went on a huge Mother's Day date and took the grandmas out to dinner at the new City Creek Center in Salt Lake.

It was a gorgeous night.  We had an incredible meal, did a little shopping and enjoyed the weather.  It was one of those perfect temperature Salt Lake nights, where just after a little rain, the humidity and temp are exactly matched to your body.  You can't feel the air at all - it's not warm, not chilly, not breezy, not stuffy.  It's just perfect.
On the way home, Melissa and I nearly wrecked the car on the freeway craning to see a complete double rainbow stretching across the entire East bench of the Salt Lake Valley.

I also got tons of "Sloaney Baloney" time.  Jessica (sadly) got very sick and in a feeble effort to keep Sloan healthy, dropped him off for Melissa and me to tend for a couple days.  I got to clock some serious nephew time.  I'm so glad too because he is growing like a weed and refuses to be a baby.  He wants to be a kid worse than any baby I've ever met.

(I promise that goose-egg on his head was there before we got a hold of him.)

...and a little Kate time too.  I love my little Kurt-Cobain-hair-look-alike. 

...even some time with my Dad, the eternal model helicopter engineer.  He keeps buying these "for the grandkids."  We're glad he has an excuse to buy toys and that he likes fixing them after he wrecks them.  Dad is awesome.  I had to ask him for a 4am ride to the airport.  I felt bad asking any of the moms to get up that early on Mother's Day, so my poor dad got the job.  He was there on time, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, excited to do it.  I took the 6am flight home so that I could go to Mother's Day church with my own kiddos.  Pulled into the driveway about 5 minutes before it was time to drive to church.  No worries - I showered and put on my dress and heels at 3am so I was ready to go.  Perfect end to a perfect weekend.  Thanks to David for making it happen.

a student, a teacher, and a trip to a wedding

(Adrienne and Brandon)

I have so much I could say on the topic of my teaching career and my feelings about it 8 years after leaving.  It was a job that gave me enough anxiety to have nightmares about my AP students for 7 years afterwards.  (Thankfully, it has been about a year since I had one of those, maybe I'm healing.)  It was a job that still gives me panic attacks whenever I give serious thought to returning.  I literally put my life into that job and seldom felt like my efforts, stress, and sacrifices were worth what I was giving on a daily basis.

However, I really did love my students (well, most of them.)  I really loved, and still miss seeing, their eyes light up when I just explained something really hard and they actually understood it.  I loved feeling like maybe, just maybe, I might have a tiny amount of influence on their lives and hoped that it was the good kind of influence.  That part was also daunting - to know that they needed it so much and I could really mess someone up if I wasn't careful.

(Adrienne and I on the Salt Lake Temple Grounds.)

This brings me to Adrienne.  A lot of people wonder why I made a special trip last month to Salt Lake to see a former student get married.  Trust me, it's not a common occurrence.  She was in my AP chemistry class the year I was pregnant with and had Grace (she had also taken my honors chem class the year before.)  I wish I had kept just one of her assignments or exams for the scrapbook.  I still remember her perfect handwriting with carefully laid-out problems and lab write-ups, each one more beautiful and correct than the last.  I could have used pretty much every one of her exams for my key to grade the others.  I'm not making it up, or remembering it through rose-colored glasses- she was that good.  She wasn't just a nerd, either, she played varsity basketball, was a blast to be around, and she was genuinely nice to me and everyone around her.  Her parents were awesome.  She (and other students like her) made it worth showing up to school one more time.  Sure, the kids who really struggled needed me even more, and I tried to "show up" for them too, but that gets hard to talk yourself into when your alarm goes off at 4:50am, you know you will need at least 3 cokes to get through the day, and your salary is less than a manager at McDonald's.  You just need a glimmer of hope that someone will appreciate you that day.

She really was one of the best, if not the best, student who ever entered my door.  So, then, one has to ask herself, did she really need me at all?  Wouldn't she have been totally amazing, with, or without my class?  Wouldn't she have succeeded in life, regardless of anything I did?  The answer is obviously, yes.  She would have been fine if I had never been a teacher at Olympus High School.

Adrienne and I discovered, soon after she graduated and I left my job, that we were more like kindred spirits and really, quite frankly, had HAD to be friends.  She contacted me by e-mail right after I moved to MA to tell me what she was doing in college and our friendship took off like a rocket.   She and I wrote to each other over e-mail for years after that.  We talked on the phone often too.  She, a chemistry student at the University of Utah, and I, a stay-at-home-mom-riding-instructor in Massachusetts, formed a weird little friendship.  She even tromped through a blizzard one terrible night to come and visit me when she was doing medical school interviews in Boston.  I saw her every chance I could when I went home to visit family in Salt Lake.  I followed her schooling, her social life, her love life, and all that was in-between.  She reminded me what I taught her and allowed me to re-learn myself, and gave me extra reasons to look forward to teaching my own growing girls.

Our friendship followed her through medical school at the U, medical service missions to Africa, my life as a mother,  and our move to NM.  With the invention of facebook, and my better-practiced texting abilities, we lazily let the e-mails and phone calls die down, but still saw each other as often as possible.

When she texted me last fall to say that she was engaged, I was ecstatic for her.  The road to that engagement was a long one.  I was instantly invited to the wedding reception.  I doubted that I would be able to go since she was getting married the day before Mother's Day in my busiest month of the year, we were running out of airline points, and David's job faced furloughs.  But, I planned to certainly send a great gift.   A few months later, I casually mentioned to David that I would really love to "see that girl get married."  He barely said anything as he picked up his ipad and started looking for flights.  (p.s. I have THE best husband.)  He started plotting how he would take time off work, take care of the kids, and let me go - no question.  Not only had Adrienne invited me to her reception, I was kind of stunned when she also invited me to her actual wedding ceremony in the temple, as well as her fancy family wedding dinner at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

This is a long story, but it has a point, I promise.  As I walked into the temple waiting room, I felt so out of place.  Did I really belong in this intimate setting with her family?  Maybe I should just be inconspicuous and appropriately blend into the wall.  I planned to greet her parents and then do my best at becoming a wall flower.  Her mom came up to me and hugged me harder than I have maybe been hugged in my life, and grabbed my arms as she told everyone I was "the reason for all this."  She introduced me to everyone as "Mrs. Chapman!  Adrienne's teacher!"  (Adrienne stopped calling me that a long time ago, but I understand her mom... I do it with my kids' teachers too.)  Still, I really couldn't place all the fuss.  Maybe, I was responsible at some point, for Adrienne not giving up on science when the studying got hard - like back when she was a junior in high school.  But, I could not possibly be responsible for this girl getting married and heading off to an M.D. residency and catching each one of her dreams she's been chasing!  I'm pretty sure her mother had more to do with it than I did, and let's not forget amazing Adrienne either!

Then, as we were in the sealing room waiting for Adrienne and Brandon to come in, her mom stood up suddenly and whispered- as loud as she could- to her son across the room, "where's Mrs. Chapman?!"  She was so worried that I wasn't in there (I was there in the back row, trying to appropriately blend into the wall again.)  Again, I was floored that she would be worrying about me when her only daughter was about to walk into the room to be married.

Later that night at the reception, I stood in line to wish them well one more time and tell Adrienne good-bye.  I won't be seeing her for a long time now, since a week later, she graduated from med school and is off to her residency in Michigan tomorrow.  Her mom hugged me tight (again!) and sobbed into my ear "the INFLUENCE of a TEACHER!  You'll never know!"  And, right then, I knew she was right.  I wasn't totally the reason, or even close, for Adrienne's success in so many areas of life (I'm ABSOLUTELY sure I had nothing to do with her sweet basketball skills.)  But, that sophomore year in my honors chem class... Adrienne found a spark of interest in science.  She found the reasons she liked it, and found out she was good at it too, really good at it.  She had a teacher who let her be good at it, and helped her along the way.  She saw (in me) a female person who had graduated with a degree in science and decided she could do that too.   She used to call me in the middle of a hard chemistry class at the U and tell me it was my fault she was a chem major.  She realized she loved it all and wanted as much of it as she could get.  And, because my classroom was a safe spot, especially for girls, no one stomped it out of her.

I know how important good teachers are.  Ironically, it's kind of one of the reasons I quit.  I didn't feel like I could keep being as good a teacher as I knew I needed to be without requiring hospitalization at some point.  I was burned out from trying and could not see any end to the stress and anxiety it caused me, especially after having Grace.  It required too much.  Others do a beautiful job at balancing it all (I could name a dozen colleagues whose stellar teaching careers have spanned decades without falter,) but at the time, I was not much of a balancer.  It was all or nothing.  Maybe I would be better at balancing it now.  Maybe not.  But, all of this came into sharp focus for me when Adrienne's mom nearly squeezed the life out of me.  At the exact same time of the wedding, we were preparing to say a pretty sad good-bye to Grace's 4th grade teacher.  I know it's still quite early in her school career, but Mr. Emery has made exactly, that kind of difference for Grace at school and in her life.  (That is a totally separate post, coming soon.)  The influence of a teacher at the right time and place can be astronomical.  Sure, we parents need to take some of the credit for failure or success, and so do the kids, but there is really nothing like another adult, especially a classroom teacher who sees them on a daily basis, in your child's life, to steer them in the right direction and reinforce all that you try to teach them at home.  Usually, the really good ones, do even more than that.  They take what you have given your kids and put it on a new plane.  And, the kids listen!  They eat it up and they listen, they follow example, and at times, even more than they listen to and follow their own parents.  Parents need teachers.  It takes a village.

So, having said all this, I felt very honored to "see this girl get married."  I would have liked to have seen her medical school graduation ceremony too, but a SAHmom can only make so many trips to Salt Lake a month by herself.

It makes it even more cool that Adrienne and I are now grown-up friends and we can exchange things in a more equal way.  There always comes a point on the spectrum where the student becomes the teacher, and for Adrienne, that was a long time ago.  I love watching her and learning from her.  She keeps me young.  She is single-handedly the reason I learned to text on my super old phone with only the number key-pad.  She reminds me what is out there for my girls.  She reminds me that my girls won't be mine for very long and I have very little time to enjoy them under my roof and try to influence them.

The wedding was absolutely gorgeous and as perfect as Adrienne's old exams.  The weather was perfect.  She could not have chosen a more flattering dress for herself.  She could not have chosen more fitting venues, colors, food, or activities for the day.  She could not have chosen a husband who would compliment her more.  She knows who she is.  It was a little trip down nostalgia lane for me.  She got married where David and I did, in the Salt Lake Temple.  She had her wedding dinner and reception in the giant glass tower over-looking Salt Lake on one side, and the University of Utah football stadium and campus on the other.

(kind of a little jealous of the wedding shot on the U in the football stadium)

She and I have collectively spent so many hours at that school now, and it was really crazy to stand there at her wedding reception and look over that campus and all the memories and educational milestones that it holds for both of us now.

I look back at my, somewhat short, acutely agonizing, but sometimes personally fulfilling, teaching career and think that maybe it really was, all worth it.  If I ever have a mental episode and get crazy enough to go back to it,  I know it will be worth it again.  Harriet wrote in my Mother's day letter this year that "I know my mom is smart because she tot hi school."  Maybe even a career I had before she was born will influence that little sweetie too.   But, we're going to need some good teachers along the way.  I'm still not totally sure how I feel about my time as a teacher, but I'm glad that one kid thinks I did a good job.