TEACHER MODE: ON

 

TEACHER MODE: ON

“McCallister’s residence, Sundy speaking,” I recited, as I answered the phone for the first time. 

My mother had spent most of the day before, teaching my siblings and I how to answer a phone correctly.  Zane, G.J., and I sat in front of clunky borrowed phones while Mom pretended to call us.  She would pick up the phone in front of her and then point to one of us as she made a ringing sound.  In turns, we would answer with the correct phrase, “McCallister’s residence, ______ speaking.” 

Once we all answered correctly, we were able to graduate to the real land-line phone with an extra-long chord.

Mom was a natural teacher.  Before she had children of her own, she taught elementary school.  She considered her students her kids.  She was born to teach and was good at it. 

When I was born, she willingly left her chosen profession to stay home with me.  But she never stopped teaching.  Her new classroom was our dining room table and my siblings and I were her eager students.

Mom loved to read novels to her students.  She  believed in the benefits of reading aloud to kids.

Mom was a great storyteller.  She read aloud with amazing expression and always used different voices for the various characters.  My siblings and I would sit at her feet – hanging on every word.  When she read “Where the Red Fern Grows” by Wilson Rawls, Zane, G.J. and I cried.

“A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle was my first foray into fantasy books.  I was intrigued by the supernatural beings who teleported Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin through the universe. 

Mom let us eat a few chocolate chips every time she sat down to read to us “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl.

I loved her reading to me so much that I begged her to read to my own daughters years later when we took a trip to Disneyland with her.  On that vacation, my mother read “Charlotte’s Web” aloud to my girls.  I felt nostalgic and sentimental as I listened to my mother read to my girls and use special voices for Charlotte and Templeton.  The book was one of my childhood favorites – my mother had read it to me.

Mom also started a small business with a friend called The Woodchuck.  She and Lynn Mortenson made wooden gifts to sell at craft fairs.  The Woodchuck quickly became a learning experience for her children as well.  Mom taught me how to stain, spray paint and dot paint.  I learned how to pick out #2 pine wood.  She taught me to pray before using the power tools, and she even allowed me to use the bandsaws and sander.  These skills have enriched my life.  Every time I use power tools, I think of my mom and her life lessons.

My mom went back to teaching fourth grade when I was in college.  Every year she allowed me to come to her classroom to teach, direct, and produce a performance with her students.  She taught me through example and experience how to be a patient, kind, and dedicated teacher.  It was because of mom that I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up.

“Always be teachable” my mother reminded me.  I wish I could still be her students.  She loved learning.  She loved teaching. 

She taught me many valuable life lessons.  One of the most memorable: We are all students and teachers.  We should often ask ourselves, “What did I come here to learn?  What did I come here to teach?” 

At least that’s the way I remember it.