Grandmother was a school teacher in the proverbial rural school of two classrooms and one outhouse. Two teachers were the faculty and the county superintendent made a circuit visit now and again. A high school boy swept out the classrooms every afternoon and tended to the oil furnace in the winter. My memories are almost 70 years old, but I clearly see this 4’ 11” teacher in front of a classroom of students in grades 7 – 12, all 37 of them.
A fraying scrapbook holds class pictures of my elementary school days and I can name every teacher from memory, as if the 1950s were not long ago. Women, only the PE teacher was male, were the mainstay of our elementary school of more than 800 K – 6 children. I see their faces, hear their voices, and feel their presence. Miss Blaine. Mrs. Wendlendt. Miss Lamb. Miss Phillips serves as a benchmark for my concept of an elementary principal these 60 years later. I know nothing of her teacher leadership but am rock solid in remembering her care for children. Each has left this world, but their presence has not.
I can add similar commentary about my secondary teachers and university instructors and professors. They shaped me and continue to do so in ways I cannot always fathom but know nonetheless.
These comments are to say that teachers and principals are memorable. They play large roles in our developmental years and often shape our thinking long afterwards. I am not alone in saying this, as any reunion of my classmates or gathering of graduates from the schools I served always begins and ends with stories about teachers and children. Teachers matter in our lives.
Who are they that they matter in this way? What is there about a teacher that causes them to linger in our memory so long after the last class?
When in high school and talking with my wrestling coach, also a PE teacher, I embarrassed myself by referring to him as Dad when we were talking. It was a casual after practice moment with other wrestlers cooling off and sitting around the training room. In this very relaxed but real time, our coach’s relationship was recognized. No one commented. No one asked, “Did you mean to say that?”. Coach did not say anything. We just kept on talking. I don’t think anyone but me thought twice about the reference, because in the context, in the moment, this teacher/coach was providing us with parental care. We knew it for what it was. While he taught and coached us as a team, he knew each of us a unique person and more than a wrestler. Later, I wondered how much of a slip of the tongue I had made. I told my father of my referring to Coach as Dad and my father smiled. He told me it was an appreciation of his fatherhood that I would measure another person against his role modeling.
Over decades of school work, I have watched this same relationship develop, work its magic, and live on in the lives of hundreds of teachers and thousands of children. Teachers and children form mystical bonds. In truth and sadness, these bonds are not present for all children and all teachers. To say it nicely, teachers with a capital T have the capacity for this. There are so many more teachers with a lower case t who are causing children to learn everyday without this special relationship and I appreciate their work. However, when it is present, children know. They may not be able to express it in the moment, but they will know it over time.
Want to test this? Perch somewhere in a school hallway and watch the bees around the flowers. Children are the bees and teachers are the flowers. The bees do not flock to every flower before school or after school or when walking in the hallways. They do not look twice at lesser flowers when they pass. The bees know who not only who teaches them but who really cares about them. The bees will tell you this is true.