I loved school. I didn’t even mind the homework—most of the time. I was that student—the teacher’s pet, Honor Society, Student Council president, grading-curve buster, the one who would rather talk to the teacher during recess than play tetherball (that game was wicked).
I had my heart set on being a teacher but got derailed in eighth-grade social studies class. My assigned seat was in the middle row, three seats from the front. Before class, the boy in front of me, along with a few others around us were having a conversation about what we were going to do with our lives. I proudly said, “be a teacher.”
With a scrunched up, funny look on his face he said, “Why don’t you do something with your brains?”
And just like that, my life changed.
The craziest thing is it wasn’t even like this boy was a friend. He just sat in front of me in social studies for one year. I’m pretty sure that’s the only class we ever shared and the only conversation we ever had.
After that earth-shattering conversation, I decided I’d be a pharmacist. (There might have been a good thought process behind it.) I dove into science—chemistry, biology, physics. I was named outstanding senior in science just before graduation.
I was accepted into a pre-pharmacy program and invited to attend a day for honors students. We sat in a large lecture hall and listened to a panel of first year pharmacy students—the people we aspired to be in two years.
Only, I didn’t aspire to be them.
They were so cut-throat. It wasn’t about “all of us” getting better. It was about whether or not “I” got in. That’s not me. Pharmacy sounded interesting but I didn’t want it that much. I wanted to teach, but “do something with your brains” kept ringing in my ears.
I had so many wonderful teachers growing up. I learned cursive writing from Mrs. Howard, times tables from Mr. Jones. I dissected my first frog in Mr. Wyeth’s class, and learned to differentiate between hard red winter wheat and soft white wheat from Mr. Vance. Ms. Escamilla taught me to give a good speech with three points and bold gestures. I learned genetics from Mr. Streetman and a few hundred fruit flies.
They were my heroes (the teachers, not the fruit flies).
Who are your hero teachers and what memorable moments do you have from their classrooms? Maybe you laughed or cried with them or hated the subject they taught. Maybe one was a parent figure you needed at just the right time. Or maybe you mouthed off and one of them threw an eraser across the room and it hit you leaving a white chalk mark on your purple silk shirt—oh wait, just me?
A great thing about coming back to live in Crawfordsville is occasionally bumping into former teachers. Of all the students they have over the years, they still call me by name or by a nickname they had given me.
One of those nicknames was Pyro. If you read this issue closely enough, you will find out which Wabash alum teacher gave me that nickname and why. He is the inspiration for this issue. He was a student teacher and I only had him for part of one semester in high school, but he has been teaching at my alma mater for more than 20 years now. He has been a teacher, mentor, coach, and friend to so many of his students—not because it makes him rich or famous but because he has a heart for building up young people and gets to share with them his passion for chemistry and math in the process.
We reached out to hundreds of our alumni just like him with careers in education. They come from public, private, charter, and online schools, administrative offices, athletic fields, traditional classrooms, and larger-than-life classrooms. These alumni were generous with their time and their stories even in the midst of a pandemic, which has forced schools, on the backs of teachers, to up-end, retool, rethink, pivot, shift, adjust, quarantine, hybrid learn, hybrid teach, and work more hours with fewer resources than ever before. Sounds like teachers, right? Always giving a little bit more.
A little piece of me regrets not becoming a middle school teacher. However, I’ve learned I probably don’t have the patience for tween classroom management so it worked itself out in the end. But I know one of the greatest “somethings” I can do with my brains is to teach in whatever form that takes. So, let me teach you about some of our amazing alumni educators.
Kim Johnson | Editor
Class of ’94, North Montgomery High School