The best lessons learned

As an educator for over 34 years now, I think I'm at the stage in my career as a teacher to say "I've just about seen it all!"  (kind of a foolish idea 'cause you know that tomorrow will bring a new and better way to do things!)  When I first started teaching in the "dark ages of 1979", teachers were still running copies the "old fashioned" way, via the mimeograph machine.  When I tell my students of today that there were times when I used to go home with purple hands, they look at me as if I'm from another planet or something.  


Back in the good old days of the late '70s there were no "Smart Boards" or "white boards", just chalkboards.  On Fridays, only a few "lucky" kids were given the responsibility of taking the chalkboard erasers outside and banging them around on the tree in front of our window to clean out the chalk dust.  Forget DVDs, the now antiquated VCR tapes, and for crying out loud, don't even think of a TV...even a black and white one.  We teachers back then used this awful machine called a movie projector that was FOREVER eating up the films that we attempted to show.  I even had a class in college called, "multi-media"that was supposed to teach teachers how to run those stupid things.  And by the way, they tended to use that term "multi-media" rather loosely. Their meaning of the word multi was "2 things"....a slide projector and that ridiculous movie projector thing.  


Oh how education has changed in the more than 30 years I've been at it.  I used to the "baby" of the bunch but now in my building I'm almost the oldest.  Teachers wear jeans to school on Fridays and special occasions these days.  When I first began teaching at age 24, we had to fight for the right to wear slacks once a week.  Wow, the good old days!


Yet even in as much as some things have changed for me, there is ONE thing that remains the same in my way of thinking as a teacher, something that I know will stay with me until my dying day and that is this:


I maintain that the best lessons that a teacher can offer his/her students will NEVER be found in a text book or in our lesson plans.  Hey, they might not EVEN be tied to any of the State of Kansas standards for reading and math.  They are the kinds of lessons that children will recall far longer than they will ever remember how many sides a septagon has, what the author's purpose in writing a story was,  or who the 30th President of the United States was.  (By the way, my friend Dennis Ulrey, if you are reading this I'll give you 25 bonus points young man if you can come up with the answer to either of those!)


There is a young first grade boy at our school who is a very happy child right now, because today he became "a quail father" to 24 little tiny baby quail.  Meet Dylan, a great 7-year old kid, who is one of the charter members of the Lincoln Elementary 4H club.  One of his 4H projects is WILDLIFE 
thus he decided that it would be fun to raise some little baby quail.  We went to Pretty Prairie after school tonight to pick them up from the "nursery" and bring them home to Hutch.

I wish you could have seen the look on his face, such a priceless one, as he buckled into the back seat of my car this afternoon, box full of loudly cheeping baby quail.  Oddly enough and an "imagine that" moment, baby quail are called chicks or cheepers.  Those 2 dozen little things certainly lived up to their name on the 20 minute ride back to Hutch.  


From the back seat, Dylan called up to me saying, "Mrs. Miller, if they are singing a song then I think it is already stuck in my head!"  And then he asked me the question I dreaded, "How can you tell which one is the boy and which one is the girl?"  I was ready with the answer to THAT one.  


"Dylan," I said, "Can you tell which ones are noisest?  Well, THOSE are the boys!"  Guys who are my FB friends, no offense intended.  I COULD have just as easily told Dylan..."Hey, see the ones that brought more than one carry on bag for the trip home to Hutch?  Well, those are the ......" I think you get the picture.


During the next 3 days of school, Dylan will be learning how to take care of those noisy little cheepers.  He has to change the litter in the box, keep them watered and fed, and make sure they are staying warm enough.  He wants to show his classmates in the first grade room his project and will be giving them a demonstration talk on Friday just before the chicks leave the comfort of my classroom at Lincoln.  And it doesn't stop on Friday for Dylan as his family will be taking all of them home and then to a new home in the country with Dylan's grandfather.  


There's an additional lesson for Dylan to learn, certainly not one of the fun ones.  I tried to break it to him before we even left school today.  I called him into my room and reminded him, "Dylan, these birds are going to be very little and sometimes we may come in the morning and one or two will have..." I didn't even have the chance to get the words "died overnight" out.  He already knew and he put his hand on my shoulder and said..."I know some won't live Mrs. Miller".  Friends, I say to you again, never underestimate  the possibilities of everything a child may well know.  Actually I think little Dylan will probably handle that part about as well as I would ask him to.


So for the next 3 days, if you are looking for my classroom at Lincoln Elementary, just follow all the racket and it won't be from kids, either.  A great lesson to learn and I'm glad that Dylan is the one learning it.  By the way, in this my official "2nd year in retirement" (I crack up laughing every time I think about that.) I give thanks with a grateful heart for working with the finest staff of people ever at Lincoln Elementary.  What one of us "might" not know, another one does.  We work together for all the kids, Dylan included.  And as they saying goes, "If you could read this blog, be sure to say thank you to a teacher."  Good night everyone!

Baby quail are just about my favorite type of bird.  They are so tiny and beautiful in their color and pattern.  When you see them hatch out of their eggs, they just remind me of popcorn popping!  But alas, Dylan's quail are indeed wildlife.  Sooner or later, they have to return there.  But until then, we're going to enjoy them.