|
Just wanted to share an experience with you that really made me think we all need to stop and appreciate the teachers and educators of our children and grandchildren a whole bunch. I have always respected them and for several reasons. First of all, I wanted to be a teacher. I was enrolled at Concordia Teachers College in Seward, Nebraska to be an English teacher and then backed out and went to business college instead but lots of my friends went on to be great teachers.
I had great teachers all my life and they inspired and mentored me and I still keep in touch with some. Second, my son had the best – really, we were very fortunate, he was an outstanding student through his freshman year and then decided you can “kind of slide,” and they stuck with him and encouraged him and he still did well. Third, my grandchildren have had some very dedicated, good teachers that I’ve had the opportunity to volunteer and work with, so I’ve appreciated them for 3 generations.
Today one great lady and tremendous educator turned 66! Last year at this time I remember people wanted to give her gifts and she asked them to purchase children’s books and donate them instead. This year she gave the gift of herself by putting on a “reading” at the Hutchinson Public Library of her personal writings and inviting friends and family. Well, since it was at the library, it had to be open to the public so it had to be in the newspaper, so I was very fortunate enough to read that Sheila Lisman was having a reading of her writings at 2:00PM and could attend. I was thrilled! I have admired her since she had my son (he was not one of her outstanding students but he liked her and she always asks about him and his family and she was very helpful with us when we had a foreign exchange student). She was an excellent English teacher and you would hear every parent say they wanted their child to have her and every student say they wanted her! She taught for 39 years in the Hutchinson School District starting at Sherman Junior High.
I tried to sneak in and sit quietly unnoticed as I really felt it was more for friends and family but she graciously came over and thanked me and welcomed me twice – she’s just like that, always smiling, always has time for you. Then I looked around and recognized many of her friends - great, great teachers that had worked with her. I listened to her stories and her compliment her friends and colleagues that weren’t there, thanking them for helping her along the way. She never, never stopped smiling – unless, she got a little sentimental regarding the death of a friend of a family member. Her voice was amazing and her writing are very good, keeping your attention, most very witty. I truly enjoyed the letters her grandparents had kept that she had written to them as a child – she was already quite the writer. She encouraged us all to have children write letters or stories, and, of course, I thought of my grandchildren.
I’m sure among that group of retired teachers there that there were “down times” and “giving up” times while they were teaching but I never heard that today. I saw how they loved it, what they did to support each other, the positive and fun things they did along the way, the love they had for their students. I think it’s harder for teachers now and I’m not sure how to help them but it’s our job to do that. We as parents, grandparents, tax payers, legislators. Administrators, whatever – we have to put the “best” in front of our future and our future is the children they are teaching. To get the best to do this job, we have to make it worthwhile and give the profession the respect it deserves. It’s a tremendously challenging career.
Kudos to you Sheila for 39 wonderful years that I know you enjoyed! As you said yourself today, “it was the long-cut home” and you loved it. Keep up the great work with your “Community Columnist” job and I think after hearing the “elderly Rap Song” today that you could always go that direction also. You’re one of a kind!
P.S. Please do not check the punctuation in this!
|
