I love going out to lunch. Even more than dinner at a fancy restaurant. Even more than a down-home eggs-n-bacon breakfast. Just take me to lunch. I think it’s because, for most of my teaching life, lunch was an elusive luxury. Now that we’re retired, my husband Ed (also a former teacher) and I go out for lunch often, usually frequenting our neighborhood sandwich shop. We go there so often the staff knows our names and our order. Always on the lookout for a good story, I’ve observed our fellow lunchers and grouped them into four categories. I couldn’t help myself. It’s a teacher thing…
The Toddler Lunch
The Toddler Lunch
Prefers outside tables away from the crowds
May include high chairs, wet wipes, juice boxes
Menu: Mostly finger foods
Adult lunch is secondary to the feeding of the young
Duration: until the toddlers loose interest and become “free-range” Children
As a teacher, one of my favorite times of the school year was Read Across America Day, celebrated on March 2nd, the birthday of Dr. Seuss. Teachers love a good theme to get their creative juices flowing and with Dr. Seuss as our muse, we let our imaginations run wild! Reading and writing activities, dress up opportunities and, in recent years, classroom door decorating contests abound. All you have to do is search Pinterest for ideas.
My Star-Belly Sneetch costume retired when I did four years ago. No more Dr. Seuss fun for me, I thought. Then my daughter called.
My granddaughter’s ABA (applied behavioral analysis) center was having a Dr. Seuss door decorating contest. Melanie was given the theme of Dr. Seuss’ ABC book and she could decorate a door in her home to win a contest. “Do you have any ideas, Mom?” Kelli asked. Of course I did!
You have met Melanie in several of my blog posts. She is a bright, energetic girl who loves Disney Princesses. Melanie has autism and is mostly nonverbal. She attends school virtually and works with Elizabeth, an RBT (registered behavior technician) from the ABA center who comes to her home each day.
“I just need a visual.” Kelli said. I found a copy of the book cover online, made up some alphabet pages and Kelli, Melanie, and Elizabeth took it from there. They used photographs of Melanie along with alphabet pictures Melanie worked on to complete the project.
Melanie thinks of something that begins with W. Waffles! Her favorite!
It’s that time of year again. Pumpkin carving, trick-or-treaters, classroom parties. Being retired, I no longer have to plan and take part in classroom Halloween activities. But I’ve experienced my share of them during my 37 year career as a kindergarten, first-grade, and fourth-grade teacher. Here are my Ghosts of Halloween past:
One of my first Halloweens as a teacher…Jeans, straw hat, hubby’s flannel shirt…A Scarecrow? Spooky owls with egg carton eyes hang from the ceiling.
Kindergarten
I started my teaching career as a kindergarten teacher in 1975. During that time kindergarten was a half-day program in public schools, if they even offered it at all. In one sense, the half-day time frame was a great setup for Halloween. The students came to school dressed in costume and we played some games (Guess who’s under the mask, Halloween Bingo, maybe a simple art activity.) A school-wide parade would follow. Kindergarteners always led the way, and we picked up the other-grade classes as we wound our way around the school. By the end of the morning, we had a snack… brought in by parents, homemade, and extra sugary. If you were lucky enough to reserve one of the school’s projectors, you could end the session with the Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin. By then, it was time to send the little goblins home on a sugar high for the parents to deal with.
Half-day Kindergarten teachers had one disadvantage, however. After a quick lunch break, during which I had to clean up the classroom and reset my activities, I had to get ready to party all over again with the afternoon session, pretending that I was equally enthused the second time around.
First Grade
Sometime during my years as a first grade teacher, things began to change. The first wave of social consciousness and health awareness hit the school scene and altered our holiday celebrations. Some parents objected to Halloween on religious grounds and did not want their children to dress up in objectionable costumes such as witches or devils. In some years, we banned the word “Halloween” and called the celebration at the end of October “Harvest Festival”. Students could dress in costume if they came as a book character. (“But Mrs. VanDeventer…. Spiderman is in a book!”)
Miss Viola Swamp
Viola was a mean substitute teacher…
…who arrived to tame Miss Nelson’s unruly class in this James Marshall book
School officials wanted to focus on health. Sugary treats were banned in favor of “healthy snacks” and teachers scrambled to come up with ways to make carrot sticks and cheese look like fun. (I remember making spiders out of Ritz Cracker-and-peanutbutter bodies with pretzel-stick legs and raisin eyes. Yum..)
Fourth Grade
During my last three years of teaching as a fourth-grade teacher, Halloween was back and costumes were allowed. However, you had many, many state standards to cover and couldn’t afford to “take a day off” to party. Movies were not allowed unless there was a specific ‘tie-in” with the curriculum. Sorry Charlie (Brown.)My teaching team and I came up with what I thought was a great idea. Each of the 4 teachers created a standard-based, Halloween-themed activity in Language Arts, Math, Science, or Writing. The students rotated through the classrooms throughout the day, keeping everyone engaged until the end-of-the-day snack. Unhealthy treats were allowed in moderation… except now everyone has allergies. No peanuts, gluten, dairy, tree nuts…..
Retired
It’s fun to think about those days and sometimes, I really do miss the kids, the excitement, the fun. But now I’m happy to say that I celebrate Halloween with pictures of my grandchildren in their costumes and by sitting in my driveway on a warm Arizona night handing out candy to the neighborhood kids.
( I hold back a few of the snickers to eat while I’m watching The Great Pumpkin from the comfort of my own living room.)
Granddaughters Melanie (AKA Elsa) and Michaela (AKA Mayura Miraculous) have fun at the Trunk-or -Treat sponsored by Autism Community Connections https://autismcc-in.org/
Threads of Thought
Read more about my experiences in teaching and retirement in my newly released book: Out of the Crayon Box: Thoughts on Teaching, Retirement, and Life
One of the first things I did when I retired from teaching three years ago (after sleeping for about a month) was to convert a spare room in my home from a teacher’s office to a writing/sewing studio. https://seamslikeastory.com/creating-a-space-to-sew-and-write/ After thirty-seven years of teaching, I needed a different way to occupy my time and engage my mind. I rekindled passions I had put on the back burner and began to sew and write again.
I find the work to be satisfying and inherently different from teaching. After spending a morning working on a poem, story, or sewing project, I have something tangible to show for my efforts. In my teaching profession, though the goals were noble and the rewards great, it often took weeks, months, or even years to see progress.
If I make a mistake sewing a garment or am not happy with the way a story is going, I can rip out seams and rewrite paragraphs. Struggling students were much harder to figure out. Many times solutions weren’t obvious, and it took many tries to succeed. There were times I wasn’t able to unravel their tangled threads or smooth out their life stories.
The Mindfulness corner in my room was a place where students could go to collect their thoughts, reflect, calm themselves.
Reap what you sew
So why did I stick with teaching for all those years? Because sometimes, sometimes, a spark ignites, a plan works, a struggling student smiles and succeeds, I made a difference; I reaped what I’d sewn.
These moments, brief as they may be, are the rocket fuel that drives those of us who were, and are fortunate enough to be educators. That passion drives me still. I’m finding new ways to channel it.
Threads of Thought
Transitioning to retirement has been a three-year journey for me.
It was the summer of 1975. My first job interview:
“Do you think you can teach kindergarten? We’ve got a half-day opening.”
“I have a kindergarten endorsement and I did student teaching in kindergarten this spring…” I began as I inched my credentials towards the principal.
“Can you start next week?”
No one asked to see my grade point average, my transcripts, or my letters of recommendation. School was to start in two weeks and a last-minute swell in kindergarten enrollment had opened up an additional half-day position. They offered me a job on the spot. The contract confirmed my annual salary for the half-day position would be $3,500. I was elated.
And so my teaching career began.
Here are three things I learned from that wiggly group of 28 Kindergarteners:
