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Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Teacher Appreciation/Grateful/Blessed

 

     All the media about Teacher Appreciation week  got me thinking about those 32 years I spent in education. When challenged to remember “a” teacher who impacted my life,  memories came flooding back.

    I had some teachers as a child who made a difference in my life but the teachers I worked with as an adult changed me forever.   

   I began my career in rural Missouri; Miller, Missouri to be exact. A woman with three years’ experience,  Lillian Andrade, was my first mentor. I lost track of her years ago.

    I spent three years in Sapulpa, Oklahoma as a traveling Speech/Language pathologist. Ben Hazlett and Robert Price taught me what a principal should be. I didn’t always like it at the time but looking back;  they knew what they were doing.

    I spent two years with the Early Childhood Coop of Creek and Okfuskee counties traveling through the countryside bringing resources to teachers to deal with special needs in rural Oklahoma. Every teacher in those country schools was phenomenal,  choosing to educate that population.

    In 1985, I joined the educators of  Moore, Oklahoma. I would spend thirty one years there teaching in four different schools. Here is where I would hone my skills and learn more than college could ever teach me. I won’t name names because I would forget someone and hate myself for that. Suffice to say,   I worked with far more great teachers than mediocre ones. A few incidents that solidified that:

      When teachers were hired a few hours before open house, (on more than one occasion)  we sprang into action. The room was a Pinterest worthy classroom after eight seasoned teachers attacked it. #amynickell  #kaywilliams 

     Together, we navigated two major tornadoes and a dozen minor ones. As we sheltered our students under desks and flattened ourselves on top of them,  we prayed. After the 2013 tornado, we spent the summer supporting our colleagues who lost everything in the devasted schools that were wiped off their foundations.  We cried with the teachers who buried students as a result. We shared tons of teacher-made resources to restock their scattered files.   #ginajantzen  #avawilhelm    

    Our buildings shook the morning of April 19, 1995. Numerous students were affected as our police and EMT”s and firefighters streamed to the scene of the Murrah building bombing. My forward thinking principal pressed anyone not in a classroom into the office to check every student’s record. In those days, parent employment was listed on the forms, and  we made sure no student went home to an empty house. When one of our teachers hadn’t heard from her husband by noon,  we covered her class but refused to let her go home to an empty house also!  #cherylfields  #kelleystrong  #debbiearato

      Five of us were subpoenaed in a custody battle and traveled together to experience our first testimony  as “expert” witnesses.  It was an unforgettable experience and one that impacted me forever. Law prevents me from sharing details but as an eight year old was led out by a CASA to testify against his biological father, the adoptive father stopped him at the door, threw his arms around him and said,  “You are my son, no court changes that.”  Not a dry eye in the room. The ex-con  bio father and his girlfriend in her lace dress with NOTHING under it  did not get custody. I am friends with the family to this day.   #amynickell  #carolyates #tammyharrison

      Our entire faculty was shaken when a former student murdered a classmate as initiation into a gang. In jail,  he requested to see two of our teachers. One of them was called to testify. She did so bolstered by the prayers of her team.  

      In 1997,  we collapsed into each other when we faced the murder of three of our students, siblings, at the hand of their father.  Nothing,  nothing, prepares you to navigate that. We were led by a principal who epitomized  courage and wisdom. Together we healed each other and our remaining students. #suziepierce  #kaywilliams  #carolanderson  #amynickell

     I was doubly blessed because I worked with the teachers who taught my children. There are no gifts, cards or mementos that can convey appreciation to these incredible human beings. I am a culmination of all they taught me and our shared experiences. I owe a debt I can never repay.

     Thank you.  Thank you, Faculty and Admins of  Briarwood,  Fisher, Kingsgate, Red Oak.

Tell a colleague how much you appreciate them today.

    

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