My sister

Sorry for the hiatus; we’ve been away on a very busy but nonetheless restful vacation. Hung out with family and friends, drove along the coast, it was da bomb!

Mary and Two and I attended a party Saturday evening in honor of my sister’s retirement as a school principal. It was a great party and absolutely the high point was when a half dozen of her former kindergarten students, now high school seniors through college sophomores, surprised her with both their presence and their testimonials as to what she had meant in their lives. It was a tear jerker, as you might have surmised.

None of them spoke of curriculum or lesson plans. Each of them described the impact she’d had on them as children and as people. One credits his choice of college major and career at least in part to conversations she’d had with him way back when.

It made me think of a conference in which I took part come years ago. The participants were parents, students, teachers, college professors and deans; in short, a wide cross-section of persons with a vested interest in the quality of education. We were there for a skull session about the nature of education at the turn of the millennium.

One of the questions we asked each of the eighty-some attendees was, “Describe a transcendent learning experience in which you took part as the learner.” Every one of the attendees chose to provide an answer and upon review, I found two attributes – and only these two - represented unanimously in the responses:

1.       Each of the described encounters involved a direct personal interaction between ‘teacher’ and ‘learner.’

2.       None of the respondents described an episode that was a planned part of the curriculum or set forth in a lesson plan.

In listening to my sister’s former students, I realized that each of them would have had a great answer for our conference question. And each of them would have involved mention of “Mrs. McD,” their kindergarten teacher.

I wish a well-deserved, wonderful retirement to my sister, Anne McDermott.