My seniors are busy writing their college essays. Remember—we want them by Friday. One of them asked me recently “How do I answer this question: What is one experience that has made you who you are today?” I said “Be honest. They can tell when you’re making it up.” I grew up in a small town in Indiana. I joke that it had 2400 people then and the same 2400 people still live there. But really, I am a product of that small town of Walkerton. I came from what I am sure we would now call a broken home…sometimes very broken. And my one place of refuge was always school. I remember so many times when going to school was the thing that saved me, that made me happiest. I remember plays in elementary school and singing for the entire town (or so it seemed to us) at the Christmas pageant. (We could call it that back then.) I remember decorating bulletin boards and the long windows above the classrooms in elementary school. Every season, we changed those decorations. I’m sure we were not very original, but it was fun. And we could see the results of our work. I remember spelling bees and dancing in the gym during PE class to the recording of “Go you chicken fat, go away…go you chicken fat go!” I remember copying poems from the board and thinking, for the first time, that poetry was actually kind of neat. I remember playing pencil tag on the playground and swinging on the monkey bars. But what do I remember most of all? I remember my teachers. Mrs. Gardner, the kindest and most patient first grade teacher a little boy could ever have—and who taught me the magic of reading and writing. Mrs. Farrar, who scolded me for hiding my abilities in some misguided attempt to blend into the crowd. “Don’t you ever be ashamed of something you’re good at,” she said. “It’s a gift, not a curse.” I remember Miss Travis, who had already taught many of our parents and who considered all of us her own children. I remember Mrs. Beatty, who spent hours helping me learn to do long division long before calculators had been invented. I remember Mrs. Miller, who read to us every day after lunch and whose voice I just loved to hear. I can still hear her reading “White Ruff”, her voice rising and falling with the action and keeping us spellbound. I remember Mrs. Hall, who let me write my own poems (and do those window decorations when I had finished all my work and was getting fidgety). I remember Mrs. Dailey who had the kindest face anyone could ever have. In high school, I remember Mrs. Green who taught us English in tenth grade and who was the first person who told me I could write. Maybe others had said that, but she is the first one I remember telling me that. I remember Ms. Braunsdorf who was always finding new ways to make history come alive—and who told me that one day she would write a test for me where I would not get all the multiple-choice right. She never did, but it was fun anyway. And I remember Mr. Mulligan, who gave all of us a love for theater and for reading and for thinking and who made us feel important. That’s very important indeed in a small town like Walkerton, which sometimes seemed like a place the outside world had kind of forgotten. I always felt safe in school. I felt important and I felt smart. I felt whole, not broken. I suppose that is why I am still in school, all these years later. My experiences growing up in that small town in Indiana have made me the teacher that I am today, the person that I am today. I want my classroom to be the place where my students can feel safe, comfortable, appreciated. I want it to be a refuge from a world that is sometimes cruel, often indifferent and intolerant. So that is my essay. Or at least, it would be if I had to write one now, all these years later. To my seniors today, I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to reading yours.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 23:12:02 +0000
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