Overview:
As her school prepares to close, a volunteer teacher ponders the fate of a gifted student reimagined in The Giver, finding hope in the endings rather than sadness.
Great teachers, like Anne Sullivan, embrace hope and strive to nurture it in their students. Born shortly after the Civil War, a childhood illness left Anne partially blind. Overcoming that obstacle, he graduated from college and entered Helen Keller’s life as her teacher. Helen embraced Anne’s hope and later in life wrote, “Hope is hope and faith leads to success.” Helen’s health assessment and the latest announcement are examining the prospects of teachers and staff at St Michael-St Clement (STM-STC) Primary/Middle School. The school will be closed permanently at the end of this school year. One veteran teacher, some of whose students I have taught mathematics, admitted that, “It was sad news for all of us.” However, the sadness of the last chapter of STM-STC does not at all affect the story written during the school’s history of almost 100 years.
A history based on that positive interaction between students and teachers where learning and personal growth takes place. History unfolds each school year as teachers share with their students the knowledge gained over a thousand years and develop character traits such as faith, self-control and fair play. The Ursuline nuns began teaching the disciples of St Michael about 390 years after the order was founded in Italy. (Apparently, it took some time for the good sisters to travel from the old country to the United States.) Six years after the doors of St. Michael opened, the Franciscan order founded St. Clement. The two schools were merged in 2017, the year I left my long-time job at a bank and started a new chapter as a volunteer instructor at STM-STC. Over the years, including decades teaching evening classes at local colleges, I have met and said goodbye to many wonderful students. Teachers usually say goodbye. For teachers, the word combines the sadness of parting with hope for the student’s future.
I couldn’t have written a better ending to my time at STM–STC than my last teaching sessions with Simone. A few weeks ago we went from math problems to completing an ELA assignment based on Lois Lowry’s book, The giver. Simone’s task of rewriting the story’s ending, just as the school story comes to an end, struck us as a wonderful accident. Coincidence aside, we began to focus on other ends of the The giver. Simone produced some really creative ideas and during the next weekly session we saw the outline of her optimistic, compelling and emotional conclusion.
In the third week, Simone gave her ELA teacher a completed assignment. It was expanded from the two-page draft we reviewed to five pages, with Simone introducing a number of new characters. Since the directions said two or more paragraphs, I asked Simone how her teacher reacted to the five pages. “He seemed very eager to read it,” answered Simone. His teacher’s reaction suggests a truly dedicated teacher. Simone also talked about discussing the assignment with the student in class. Towards the end of their conversation, her friend was surprised at how long it took Simone to finish it, asking, “How long does it take to write two paragraphs?”
Siimone and I continued to discuss the content of his conclusion The giver. Among my other questions, did the introduction of a handful of new characters lift the sequel? I casually asked the question; however, if put more seriously could the answer be that the last chapter of the book was not an ending, but a transition to a new story? And beyond The giverhad wider consequences? As we chatted, an hour passed and Simone decided on key points with a smaller version of her conclusion. How impressive that Simone wanted to continue working on her paper, even though she had already submitted the long version to her ELA teacher! However, Simone kept showing that she was working, not just for the grade, but to improve her skills and realize her full potential.
In our next section, Simone presented a revised one-and-a-half-page closing, its focus sharp without sacrificing wit or emotional impact. Although we were considering further revisions, I enthusiastically commended Simone on much of what she wrote. The following is my favorite passage from his writing: “Jonas leaned his head against the car window in failure. There were no more tears in him, just silent regret.” Unusual and thought provoking. I wonder how many at STM-STC share similar feelings in their emotional separation from the school Simone described as holding “all my memories.”
Memories will soon fade as STM-STC writes the last pages of its history. However, the fact that it will always be a part of history, gives comfort. As Robert E. Lee, former president of Washington College, wrote near the end of his life, “The truth is: The march of Providence is slow, and our desires are impatient; the work of development is too great and our means to help it are too weak; human life is so far, human life is so short, that we often see only the waves that have ended and teach us that gloomy history is disappointing. I hope that the school teachers and support staff will write a new chapter in their lives, not with sadness or with regret, but with satisfaction and hope. Those feelings of hope are rooted in their experiences with students, like Simone, who nurture them as guides and mentors. It is one of the most important roles that teachers play and has always been a teacher’s highest calling.
