AlisonH
Michelle’s home, Michelle’s home!
We were both saying to the other, I was going to pick up some soy milk for her before this, I don’t know why I didn’t get around to it earlier. We hated to keep her from getting to go straight home after her long day.
And yet. The outcome was that after talking yesterday about superb teachers–the traffic to the airport was terrible, we were late getting there to pick her up, which means that when we stopped at the grocery store on the way home, we just happened to be there right at the same time as Ginny. Who is the best kindergarten teacher ever and who taught all our kids. (I asked for her specifically all four times.)
That was as perfect a way as I can think of to welcome our daughter home. Talk about old times! And new, and we did.
Ginny is someone who, last I saw, had a small enclosure set up in a corner in her classroom: streamers hanging down to create what she called the butterfly room. The children raised Monarchs in there, and when a child needed some time to calm down, they could go in there for a moment to be still and have the butterflies they’d fed and watched and cared for land on their arms, their shoulders, their heads, alive and peaceful and colorful, eye right to eye.
And then when the proper time in the year came, the children released them to fly free.
Every Monarch they might ever see for the rest of their lives, they could wonder if it was descended from one of their own and feel a kinship to it.
And we claim Ginny as ours forever.
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I can’t help but think that Ginny must see toddlers and babies in the neighborhood and wonder if they are descended from one of her own.
I’m happy to hear Michelle is home, safe and sound. Having descendents around is pretty wonderful.
Comment by twinsetellen 12.15.10 @ 10:56 pmI had a few teachers like that, my 9th grade English teacher; my algebra teacher [same year]; the one who taught Algebra II in summer school and calculus my senior year; and the professor who baptized me into the church. We don’t forget them.
Comment by Lynn 12.16.10 @ 5:14 amso awesome — my daughter had a teacher for 7th & 8th grade science (who now is the director of education for Monterey Bay Aquarium), and even through college she would say “all I even needed to know about science I learned from Rita Bell”
really good teaching is like dropping a pebble in a pond — the ripples spread out forever
Comment by Bev 12.16.10 @ 7:56 amWelcome home, Michelle!
Yes! Great teachers are remembered forever. My 7th- 8th grade English teacher, and Miss Connolly in high school, whom I also had in college. She had a great sense of humor.
Comment by Don Meyer 12.16.10 @ 9:46 amI don’t remember my kindergarten teacher but oh, that first and second grade teacher! She was Mrs. Wonderful and we stayed friends all her life.
Comment by sherry in Idaho 12.16.10 @ 10:37 amI want a butterfly room! My fifth grade teacher Miss Radzville had a green thumb and lovely plants around the classroom. Misting the (I just typed temperamental and realized I should have said “needing constant conditions”) Baby’s breath was a treat. Every classroom should have plants …if it can’t have a butterfly room.
Comment by LynnM 12.16.10 @ 11:01 amBecca’s 3rd grade class had a rain forest section. Cool–but butterflies may be a little more practical. I’m so glad you got to see her. Matt arrives tonight–snow permitting. I hope it goes as well.
Comment by LauraN 12.16.10 @ 12:19 pmwow. That’s….. Wow. What a teacher, what a way to start school. The magic of science encapsulated (cocooned?).
Welcome home, Michelle!
Comment by Lene 12.16.10 @ 5:05 pmI was JUST thinking of my son’s kindergarten teacher the other day, and how wonderful it would be to tell her one more time how much we loved her. I do hope I’ll run into her again at some point!
Comment by karin maag-tanchak 12.20.10 @ 6:14 pmLeave a comment
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