Before They Know It

Guest written by our friend Gladys Fuentes

Before our kids started school, I never realized how much the schools actually relied on the internet for communication. I just assumed teachers now communicated with parents the way they did when I was at school—they just sent notes home. Little did I know that the more popular way today was to send e-mails or use a school website!

To help keep us in the loop with what is happening every day with the boys, we are going to get.wild blue Exede. While teachers do send still notes home, they also send e-mail updates to parents about tests, homework and grades.

Plus the school website is a helpful reference. On the calendar they show all of the teacher workdays and vacations as well as important state testing dates and fun events like field day. No more missing an important date or not being aware of what is going on.

While we as parents appreciate it, I wonder if the kids do. Now we know what they’ve been up to at school before they can get home to tell us about it!

"You Were My Favorite Teacher"

After a lot of years of teaching at different grade levels, I moved to a town about 25 miles from where I had done most of my teaching. Over the years, I occasionally ran into a former student and was amazed to find that they still remembered me. Sometimes they had to clue me in as to who they were since they had grown up in the meantime and changed a bit more in looks than I had.

Anyway, not long ago, I ordered a sandwich at the speaker of an Arby's Roast Beef restaurant, and when I drove up to the window, a young woman I didn't recognize came dashing over to the window. "You're Mrs. Gibson," she cried. "You were my very favorite teacher." A bit embarrassed, I asked her name. As soon as she told me, I did remember the little girl with pigtails that had been so appealing to me 20 years earlier.

I redeemed myself a little by telling her exactly where she had sat in my class and by mentioning the pigtails, and since no one was behind me, we were able to chat a while, and she repeated that she had remembered me because I was her very favorite teacher.

I'm sure my head must have started to swell as I imagined that it must have been because I had taught her how to write clearly, or had helped her plan that science project that had won a prize, or maybe it was because I finally got the idea of how fractions worked across to her in math.

I didn't have to imagine for long, because then she said; "You want to know why you were my favorite teacher? It was because you took us skating on the last day of school and bought us each a Coke afterwards."

I guess it's a good thing they don't let students pick out who is going to be the "teacher of the year."