The elementary school I attended as a kid was great. It was pretty new when we first moved to the area, so it was always clean and had terrific teachers. Some of my favorites, or at least the ones I remember, were Miss. Mann (Kindergarden), Mrs. Cosby (first grade), Mrs. Ways (third grade), and Mr. Arrowwood (PE). As My family was gearing up to move half way around the globe to a country that barely had telephones and certainly not TV, I was recalling the important values these teachers taught me along the way.
Miss Mann, now married and I’ve forgotten her married name, always seemed cheerful. However there was this one time that she taught me the value of honesty. The class was about ready to leave for home. We had rolled up our mats, packed our bags and were finishing using the bathroom, which is a bear of a job with 20 little kids and one half-pint sized toilet. My family has always teased me about the time I spend in the bathroom, but that’s not really propper blogging material, however, my time spent in the bathroom that day taught me a lesson I still carry. You see, as usual I was in the reading room a little longer than the others. Actually, I had run out of paper and tried to install a new roll. That sounds easy enough, but at 5 years old and the pressure of 19 others kids outside the door doing the potty dance while they wait for me to exit I had lost almost all fine motor functions and was struggling to get the old roll off the little spring. Finally the spring snapped and the roll went flying through the air. I could see it in slow motion as if it were a skier jumping through the alpine air of the Olympics. Unlike the skier who would gracefully land in the target area with powdery snow below, the empty brown tube made quite the splash into the tiny toilet just beside the sink.
“What should I do?” my mind began to race. I tried fishing it out with a toilet brush that was sitting in the corner, but to no avail all that did was disintegrate the poor little tube into a thousand little pieces. So I did what any 5 year old little boy would do in a situation like this. I flushed. And surprise, surprise it clogged the toilet as I watched the water rise up to the rim. Eventually the water receded and I tried again, only this time I flushed and walked out as if nothing happened. As I headed to my cubby for my backpack, the other kids went into that little bathroom one by one and did their business. Eventually some poor kid put one too many sheets into the bowl and it finally overflowed, at which Miss. Mann was called onto the scene. She told all of us to line up, which we did immediately like soldiers because most of us thought we were each the culprit of the overflowing fountain in the bathroom. Everyone after me thought they were at fault, and each flushed and walked out as if nothing happened.
Miss. Mann said that whoever caused the toilet to be clogged should raise their hand and confess. As you can imagine, about 12 or so of us raised our hands. She was not amused. She was certain there was a coup of 5 year olds devising a plan and there would be anarchy soon if the root of the problem was not flushed out (pun intended). Miss. Mann said we would all miss the busses until the real person stepped forward and claimed responsibility. No one moved. The bus bell rang and we were all still frozen in formation staring at the floor. My heart was pounding so loudly I was sure Miss. Mann would convict me of the crime just from the guilt she heard in my heartbeat. But some poor innocent kid, whom I have I have no idea their name this many years later, stepped forward and sheepishly raised their hand in confession. Miss. Mann dismissed the rest of us to the busses while that poor soul had to wait for their parents to come get them after a meeting with Miss. Mann.
Even now I wonder who was the little lamb that went to the sacrificial alter on my behalf. Poor kid. That was my lesson in honesty and integrity.
The other teachers I recall from elementary school were just great people. Mrs. Cosby was like a grandmother to us. She even smelled like my grandmother- clothes that smelled like they were in her closet for several decades with a hint of cedar and moth balls. Every morning we said a prayer in her class, an Iris prayer of some kind if I recall. My encounter with Mrs. Cosby comes full circle in that after my return from Nepal she was in the congregation Cool Spring Baptist Church on the day i delivered my first sermon on youth Sunday. She eagerly greeted my at the door with a hug, and yes she still smelled like my grandmother. She smiled and said, “My how you have changed.” I guess I had changed from the little delinquent I was in the first grade. God knew somehow that Mrs. Cosby would prepare my for Nepal and later full-time ministry. Funny how purposeful events seem after the fact and how random they seem in the heat of the moment.
Mrs. Ways was my third grade teacher. She reminded me of my own mother. She was kind, sweet and gentle. On Mother’s Day that year we were to bring in a rock the shape of a strawberry for a Mother’s Day craft. I had almost forgotten my rock so as I was in line at the bus stop i stooped down and grabbed a rock along the edge of the road. It looked pretty goofy to me and nothing like a strawberry, more like a candy-corn stuck on the bottom of a tennis shoe. When Mrs. Ways saw my rock she was ecstatic. I was sure I was heading to the office again, but I had no idea why this time (unlike my of my visits to the office where I knew the exact offense but was not saying a word until convicted). She turn the rock over and inverted it and low and behold it was just like a strawberry- pointy on the bottom and wide at the top. She painted it red with black spots on it just like a strawberry and shoed the class the perfect example of what she was hoping everyone would do. WOW, I did something right! And was even being praised for it.
Mrs. Ways was an encourager and found the most insignificant things, or at least what I thought was insignificant, and somehow found a way to bring honor to them. My mother kept that strawberry paperweight on her desk for the next 30 years, until the day she died. Its now on my desk as a reminder to look deeply into people lives to search for something of value and worth.
The only male teach I had in elementary school was Mr. Arrowwood. He was an older man who always wore a running suite and a pair of glasses. he couldn’t run because of a bum knee which made him limp when he walked- so maybe he wore the suite because he hated wearing ties. He was a cool teacher. Outside of PE he also taught hunter safety. He would bring guns to school and teach us how to care for them, load them and even shoot them, although he never did bring live ammo to school. Looking back I wonder how in the world he got away with that. But it was a different era. He taught me to have fun when it was appropriate and be serious when it was time to buckle down and get to work. I think I loved his classes because you knew when it was time to study or time to play. That is a lesson that I still use every day. Some days those two get off balance or even blurred, but when that happened I see someone wearing a running suit and I remember Mr. Arrowwood.
We send our kids to school thinking they will learn math, science and reading. But what we often overlook is that they are learning skills for life that just cannot be taught in a bubble. Life is around us, and life teaches us.
