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I was surprised and delighted when Nancy called me to recommend someone to do child-care in my home. It was 1979, we had just moved to a new town in Western Maryland, and circumstances made it necessary for me to go back to work quickly. It broke my heart to have to leave my baby with someone else, so I was anxious to find the exact match for our family. I didn’t know her very well, but Nancy was a close friend of an older neighbor and she knew of my circumstances. “Ann is wonderful,” she said on the phone, “a very caring and trustworthy woman. You’ll love her.” As I interviewed Ann later that day I found her to be a gentle person. She had grown children of her own and her 30 year job at a nearby clothing factory had suddenly ended. “Factory’s been shut down—bought out. I hear they’re going to tear it down, “ she told me. Very quickly she became part of the family. She cared for my daughter and even made some of her baby clothes. I would sometimes help out tutoring her grandsons with their schoolwork. One day a long time after she started, she came to the house looking very tired. She laughed, “A bunch of us was up all night at Hilda’s house making baskets last night.” When I asked her about this she told me the whole story: Nancy and her husband James had run the clothing factory for 30 years. When the out-of-town owners sold it, they gave only a two-week notice. People needed jobs and the small communities in that part of Maryland did not have any opportunities. Most of the workers were older and they had no chance for income. Nancy and James were devastated. Even though they also, both in their mid-sixties, would lose everything, they set out on a plan. They worked tirelessly to find employment for all 54 workers at the plant. Day in and day out they called, they visited, and they wrote everyone they knew scouring the area for jobs until everyone was placed. “Wow!” I said, “That’s how you came to us!” I continued, “But the baskets…?” “Well, you see,” she began, “every year for all the time we worked there at the factory, Nancy and James made us Christmas baskets . They knew we weren’t making much money and it was a tight time—you know with holidays and kids and all. So they’d buy us things we could use. See, we knew they were pretty strapped too. They had three kids and the factory wasn’t paying them enough to buy their own house, but still they figured out how to give us things to make our lives better. And now—Well now they’re really low —no money coming in and James has bad, bad lungs. So, it’s our turn to do for them. A bunch of us all get together every week and make baskets. Every day someone leaves one on their front porch in the middle of the night.” I listened, mesmerized by this story. Suddenly, as I realized I had to get to work quickly, Ann smiled, picked up my crying baby girl from her crib, gently soothed her and said, “We figure that we all got to help each other in this world, right? We all got to do what we can with what we got. We’re all in this together.” Even after my daughter had grown and our family moved to New Jersey, Ann and I remained long-distance friends. One day about 10 years ago during a particularly sad time in my life a box arrived in the mail. No return address. I opened it. There, placed gently nest-like within scraps of fabric, was a basket filled with homemade cookies and breads. The note said: “We are all in this world together. Today it’s my turn to do for you.”   “Miss Kuhner,” she told me, “I don’t see that you have the makings of a teacher.” It was the fall of 1970 and I was devastated. From as far back as I could remember I knew that I wanted to teach. My future was never in question. My senior year student teaching supervisor and education professor, Dr. McHugh, was delighted to place me with a very experienced teacher, Mrs. C. who I would follow throughout the day for a while, and then slowly I would take over one class for several weeks.
I sat in the back of the room and took notes as she taught remedial 12th grade, advanced 10th grade, and intermediate 9th grade English. I watched as she exacted responses from the students and reminded them of the daily quizzes. There was no discussion about the material. In the 12th grade class I had little use initially for taking notes since the lessons were very rote and, frankly, boring. Instead, my papers were full of details about the kids in the class—all of whom were frozen in their seats. “Donna looks scared again today. She’s biting her nails a lot. I wonder if she’s having problems understanding.” And, “Jeff keeps hitting his leg like it’s falling asleep. I’ve noticed that he limps a lot. Maybe he needs some help.” And, “Marcie has been wearing the same clothes for three days now and she looks so tired.” About the second week I saw some of the 12th grade students at lunch time and I began to talk with them and offered to give them extra help if they wanted it. Several were grateful and took me up on my offer and I began to get to know them a little bit. Carol, it turned out, wrote amazing poetry so I taught her about the sonnet form to try. Jeremy, I discovered, had terrible eye-sight but no money for glasses. I talked to the school counselor who directed him to an organization that would help. And when shy Sara , who was born in Cuba, discovered that my first language was Spanish, she was elated. “This means I can be something too!” she gushed. A few days later Mrs. C. met with me after school. “You should not be helping those students,” she informed me. “They need to know that they are not really high school material. They should just drop out and go get jobs.” I was stunned. “I don’t understand,” I said, “Shouldn’t we be trying to give them the best we can so that they can be the best version of themselves?” Her sudden piercing laugh scared me. “Have you taken a good look at these children? They will never make anything of their lives. Now the ones in my Grade 10 class, they are worth helping.” I was shaken. This was not really teaching. It was something else, but it was not teaching. When it came time for me to lead a class, Mrs. C. assigned me the 12th graders. I tried several different methods to engage the students. I told stories; I asked questions; I pointed to passages in the texts that were interesting and showed details about characters and ideas. They were not all successful lessons. Some were total flops. But I went back day after day determined to help them discover ideas in literature and in themselves. And at the end of my 8-week student teaching stint, Mrs. C. sat with my professor and me and gave me her assessment. “You simply don’t have what it takes. You have to face it. Find something else to do.” She pounded the edges of the papers she was holding on the dark oak table between us and started to pull her chair back to stand. Dr. McHugh stopped her. “Mrs. C. can you please tell me why specifically you think this?” And she was more than happy to detail all of my “silly” attempts at engaging the students and all of my naive notions about learning abilities, and my useless waste of time trying to get “those ignorant children” to understand. Dr. McHugh then thanked her for her time and very courteously walked her to the door. They spoke in hushed tones for a minute before she left abruptly. His dark brown eyes were flashing with rage by the time he faced me across the table. I was limp—a diminished young girl whose dreams were crumbling. I felt my entire existence to be a sort of sham. If I couldn’t be the one thing I felt in the very marrow of my bones I was meant to be, then who was I? He looked me squarely in the eyes. “You, Sylvia Kuhner,” he said, “are a teacher. You always have been you always will be. It’s not what you do; it’s who you are. Trust yourself. Mrs. C. has a very narrow view of the world. We will not be using her as a model again.” Then his gaze went to the window for a moment and back to me. “Every single child has dignity and deserves a chance to succeed. Every single child should be honored and supported and celebrated. And I know, I know, you feel the same way.” I nodded in full agreement. For days I went over and over the events, unable to reconcile the pieces, but delighted at Dr. McHugh’s assessment of my teaching potential. About a week later I talked about this with my friend Clara, a cafeteria worker at the college and a local town resident. “So who was this teacher you were workin’ with?” she asked. When I told her she laughed. “Oh, Mrs.C. Why everybody knows about her. She only likes the rich kids—she doesn’t think the rest of the kids should even be bothering with school.” She yelled over to Johnny who was sweeping up, “Hey, Sylvia here was told by Mrs. C. over at the high school that she’s never gonna’ be a good teacher. What d’ya think about that?” Johnny chuckled, “Well, I think that makes Sylvia about the best teacher in the whole world.” All three of us burst out laughing. “You know,” Clara said, “you can learn a lot from people like Dr. McHugh about what you want to be like, but you can also learn who you don’t want to be—like from Mrs. C. . Everybody can show you something about life.” I agreed. The following September I began my first job as a teacher to my very own 7th grade class at Lower Regional School in Cape May NJ. On the first day of school as I looked out into the sea of anxious, eager faces I knew I was in love. There was nothing else in the world that I wanted to do—nothing else that felt so meaningful or was so much fun. As my work continued, I reveled in my students’ successes and really worked to help them learn about the material, about life, and about themselves. I helped and prodded and nudged and played every single day. I loved each and every one of them. When our class picture was taken in October there was much giggling and twisting about as the photographer and I tried to produce an orderly portrait. Finally, to create a more somber tone I said to the class: “Imagine looking at this picture way in the future—maybe fifty years from now. You’re going to be so amazed at who you were in 1971. You’re getting this picture taken for the you of 2021.” This worked. Later, as we were adjusting ourselves into our normal classroom configuration, I asked them to think about their future selves and what they would be proud for having accomplished. There were all manner of responses. One girl wanted to cure cancer so no one else had to lose their mom to it like she did. One boy wanted to go into the Coast Guard like his dad and protect our coastlines. Another boy wanted to drive a giant truck all over the country. A girl wanted to be a hairstylist and have her own salon. And then Billy asked me, “So what do you want to be proud of in 2021, Miss Kuhner?” My answer was immediate, “Having been caring and helpful and inspiring to years and years and years of students.” And although the formats have changed in unimaginable ways, and my age-range shifted a long time ago from 7th grade to college, this September 2021, I am humbled and proud and delighted to say, I will start my 50th year as a teacher. |
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