teachers – From The Margins Of My Bible

About today’s author:
Mary is a widowed mother of two and would never had made it without her faith, family, friends, and a good sense of humor. She has taught music for most of her working career but also a bit of German. She has dragged (or been dragged by) her family around the world from ND to Germany to Massachusetts to Okinawa, Japan, and next fall they will be in England. She loves her calling as an Elementary Music Specialist in the DoDEA (Overseas Military) school system.

You can read more about how Kerry knows Mary and why he is celebrating her during International Women’s Month by reading yesterday’s post by clicking on “Accidental Education.”

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As a music teacher, some concepts that I have to try and get across to my lovely elementary students are, at times, a bit on the abstract side. Several years ago I was trying to explain to a group of 2^nd graders the workings of a coda sign. How they need to sing to a place in the song where one coda sign is and then skip part of the song to find the other coda sign. One of my wonderful little “treasures” in this particular class yells out, “It’s a magic portal! You go through one and come out on the other!” I stared at the young gentleman and said, “Yes, you are absolutely right and I am so going to steal that.” He was the proudest guy. I still use that in my class when I teach the coda sign.

This is what is called an “Aha Moment.” It may be a bit of a cliché; however, this is one of the reasons I teach. Sometimes the moment, as in my story, is about the subject matter but sometimes it is about how to go on. Go on with their day, go on with their assignment, go on with my class, go on with just being themselves. Many times the moment never occurs but if I wait and work with the kiddos, it will come again.

And now my second reason for loving my job. There is nothing that makes a teacher’s heart take flight or validate them and their job than when a former student let you know you made a difference. Since the invention of social media, I have received several messages and requests from my former students. They have told me that I made a difference in their lives in different ways. I have also “met up” with some of my teachers and expressed the same feelings to them. This is why I teach. By the way, as far as I know only one of my former students became a music teacher.

I didn’t stay in my home state. As a matter of fact, I didn’t stay in the country. I moved to Germany to work in the DoDEA system. I have for 25 years taught the children of the Military stationed overseas on two continents. Children are unique in any situation but the military child has to be extremely flexible every day. In the DoDEA school system, on average, the entire population of most schools changes every 3 years. The amount of children that I impact during a single school year can be very humbling. For some of my students, school is one of the only stable things in their constantly changing lives.

The importance of a teacher for a student is as different as the students themselves. It could be the “Aha Moment”. It might be cornering a student and telling them to focus. It could be as simple as greeting a student with a true smile and a familiar song when their life is in flux.

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March is International Women’s Month! It is my hope that you will join me over the course of the rest of March in celebrating the women who have had a significant role in influencing me. I will post daily blog-posts — some of these posts will be from me talking about the women who have had a significant role in influencing me and some of the posts will be from these women themselves, childhood friends, mentors, teachers, co-workers, etc.

My hope is that this series, “Celebrating Women,” will accomplish three things:

to serve in a small way as a “Thank You” to all the women who have influenced me
that you will gain wisdom from those who have spoken wisdom into my life
that it will serve as a reminder to say thank you and to recognize all the amazing women in your one life

Click here to see all of the posts related to “Celebrating Women.”

I apologize in advance for the next six lines.

“What is all the fuss?”
“Teachers help all of us.”

“No more rhymes, and I mean it!”
“Does anybody want a peanut?”

“Are there struggles ahead?”
“Well without our teachers, we all be dead.”

education Mary Wax Goldsborough (or Miss Wax as I knew her back in the day) deserves my unending appreciation if for no other reason than because she introduced me to the Princess Bride. So thank you!

Mary taught me a lot about music as well. She was the music teacher at my school when I was growing up. I learned about motif, repeating themes, and much more that has made Star Wars, Les Miserables, and life as a whole more interesting and meaningful. She taught me an appreciation for Mozart as well as jazz. Because of her relentless passion and her ability to throw things at my head while directing, I learned correct posture while playing saxophone. Seriously, because of her passion I made it into college choir and band, and singing and playing saxophone is a joy still for me today.

But like so many great teachers in my life, the greatest educational lessons with Mary were not moments of intentional instruction but rather moments of accidental education.

Mary lived in a small house near the school, but she would invite the entire band to her house for an annual party. Now granted, my graduating class from Zeeland Public High School was 12, so the band didn’t have 100 students in it, but she invited all of us. We ate in the garage because it was the only room big enough for us all (but we spread out throughout her house). She also invited me to her house for a meal when she found out I was stuck in town between school and a basketball game later that evening. She made me a hamburger, gave me a Coke, and introduced me to the Princess Bride — I’m pretty sure I laughed so hard I had Coke come out of my nose.

Mary taught me a lot in the classroom. More importantly, however, in moments of accidental education, Mary taught me that teaching others isn’t just about what happens between a lectern and a seat, but also about what happens around a table — especially if it’s the teacher’s table.

In other moments of accidental education, Mary also taught me that the most important lessons a teacher can teach are seldom about the subject matter but about life.

I was a bit of an awkward junior high student. Had we been wealthy, I could have been eccentric; however, because our family was not wealthy, I was basically “weird.” I suppose every junior high or middle school student feels this way, and I probably wasn’t as uniquely weird as a felt; nevertheless, I didn’t feel like I fit in. I dealt with this by messing around and trying to be funny — key word “trying.”

On one particular day — I think during music appreciation, a class that in my experience failed to help most students appreciate anything other than AC/DC or Guns-N-Roses — I was messing around quite a bit in the band room. Mary grabbed my attention, looked sternly at me, and said, “You could be great at something if you just focused!”

I still remember where I was standing when she said that — mostly because I didn’t think she was on the same side of our split classroom when I was messing around. Her words didn’t launch me into a successful music career or, for that matter, bring me great success in the eyes of the world in any particular career. What it did do, however, was let me know that someone believed that I was capable of doing anything of substance. It was a word of encouragement to a student who felt ill equipped to do anything but mess around and try to be a clown.

There were probably a lot of factors that played into it (like my mom telling me I could watch Bonanza reruns at 10:30PM if I got on the “A” honor roll), but I went from being a mediocre junior high student to excelling academically in high school, college, and beyond. Part of that transformation was due to a moment of accidental education thanks to Mary Wax Goldsborough.

Mary is far from the only teacher who did this for me. Through the years, I have been fortunate to have some pretty amazing teachers in elementary school all the way through graduate school. Many of them, like Mary, taught me as much out of the classroom as they did in the classroom — as much about life as they did about their particular subject matter. I hope that each of them, in reading this, hears echoes of my deep appreciation for them as well.

I also hope that each of us will take time to be teachers for others — recognizing that sometimes the most important lessons are taught accidentally. Accidentally does need to mean unintentionally.

Be intentional about creating space for life’s most important lessons to be taught accidentally to a new generation.

I’ve asked Mary to write tomorrow’s post about being a teacher. I hope that you will learn from her as I have.

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My hope is that this series, “Celebrating Women,” will accomplish three things:

to serve in a small way as a “Thank You” to all the women who have influenced me
that you will gain wisdom from those who have spoken wisdom into my life
that it will serve as a reminder to say thank you and to recognize all the amazing women in your one life

Click here to see all of the posts related to “Celebrating Women.”