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I'm the Teacher Who Cared

I wrote this as a reply to a support group I am in, replying to someone who envied those who had not been traumatized in their childhood: " For a long time in my life, I also envied those who did not have to go through trauma in their childhoods. My childhood was fraught with abuse that caused me trauma. But then I was an elementary teacher, and observed and experienced lots of kids and how they interacted with their parents, over the 30 years that I taught. Some parents were great with their kids, most were just all right with their kids, and then there were the remainder who abused their kids. I remember the song by Helen Reddy, "I am Woman", and there is a line she sings: "Yes, I am wise, but it's wisdom borne of pain. Yes, I've paid the price, but look at what I gained." So on an emotional level, I regret the trauma I underwent in my abused childhood. On a spiritual level, I am grateful that I overcame so much of the burden of my abuse, and taught m...
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My Insatiable Curiosity Guided My Curriculum Decisions - Part I

 Dear Mary, In my second teaching job in base enlisted housing in Bremerton, I was grateful that I started in second grade, because the early emphasis on learning reading was phonics. The texts that we used were the Lippincott Readers, which had a controlled vocabulary beginning with CVC  words progressing from there to consonant blends, digraphs, and more. I am glad that I gained a sound phonics background. I was then transferred into fourth grade, and we were teaching reading out of the Ginn 720 series. The emphasis was on comprehension skills. I do recall a colleague saying: "My kids can read fine, but they don't understand what they read." That stuck with me. She spoke correctly, in that the kids did lack comprehension skill development. It took me months to ferret out the cause of their deficit. I knew that reasoning skills and vocabulary come from a child conversing with adults. An enriched environment will build cognition. At the same time I decided to get a second...
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A Little Boy's Christmas

 Dear Mary, This is the story of a little boy in my class, with his name redacted to protect his identity. He had a pretty rough childhood; his mom was on welfare and SNAP. Two years before I had him in my class, I had heard from another teacher he was even suicidal in second grade.  I know that I am the "soft touch" kinda teacher, so I had noticed that he was wearing older clothes that were probably one to two sizes too small for him, e.g., the hem of his jeans came down to just past his calves. At a parents' gathering, I took his mom aside and asked her if she wouldn't mind if I were to buy him some clothes for Christmas. She was glad that I would do so, because, deity bless him, he had only asked her for a Ronald McDonald watch that was only $2 on promotion at the drive in. I then went on a mission to shop every thrift store in Burien WA, to look for clothing that would fit him. This was in the days of the old Sears catalog, and looked up his size there, and knew w...
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Dear Mary Stoyko,

 I am naming this blog: "Dear Mary Stoyko." I had the privilege to get to know her, when she was a student in my fourth grade class. In the past few years, she and I became reacquainted via Facebook. It turns out that she has become a magnificent educator, having mastered team teaching along with her special STEAM (i.e., Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) curriculum, using hands-on learning, along with fully integrated lessons. In short, she teaches the whole child. She is now working to attain her administrator credential. I was, what I consider, a good teacher, but not great. Organizing has always been one of my foibles. I am fortunate that Mary esteems me far greater than I probably deserve. But I did love my students, and got to know them very well. I also used my ongoing desire to learn to be able to analyze what my students' needs were and to prescriptively design lessons to meet their needs. So this blog will consist of memories and anecdotes ...
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