By Kate Lohnes

For several Dublin-area teachers, the 2008-2009 school year was one of lasts. It was their last chance to assign homework, to read to a captive young audience or to impart a little knowledge on growing minds.

They might have left an empty classroom when summer arrived, but most would say they leave with a head and heart full of poignant stories – sometimes heartwarming, other times hilarious. Four of them have shared their favorite teaching moments with Dublin Life.

Linda Coleman
Library Media Center specialist, Dublin Scioto High School
Number of years taught: 31; 29 in the Dublin City School District
A favorite teaching moment she’s had in Dublin:
“I had a student that I met as a freshman, and when I first met this young man, he was trying to solve a problem and I was trying to help him. He needed to make some phone calls. He called and spoke to his mother in Farsi, he called and talked to his brother in German and he spoke with me in English. The conversation shows (the path his family traveled after) being persecuted when they were in Iran. The father was jailed, and the mother took the children to Germany, where they were allowing immigrants. (There were many) horrid things that happened to this woman trying to keep her three little children together. Over the years, (the student) was so excited to be here, and he was working toward becoming an American. Everyone else in his family was given their papers to be naturalized, but he had to wait and wait. When he finally did get to be naturalized, there was a ceremony (At Veterans Memorial in Columbus). Our school was so supportive. They let us take several of his close friends and go there as a ‘field trip.’ We stood up in the back and waved our little American flags. His mother turned to me and said, ‘This is the first time my family has had a country.’ A week or so later, he came and brought us a little cake to celebrate (at the school). He looked across the table at me and said, ‘Mrs. Coleman, I’m 21 years old, and for the first time in my life, I’m not a refugee. I’m your fellow American.’”
A funny teaching moment:
“One time, we had a Spanish class (in the library). Each student was given a Hispanic country to look up. The class’ teacher and I were walking around the room and helping, and this one young girl, for some reason, took her sweater and put it on backwards. The teacher said to her, ‘Are you chilly?’ She said, ‘No, I’m Venezuela.’ I laughed about that one for years.”

Peg Kok
Second grade teacher, Eli Pinney Elementary School
Number of years taught: 35; 32 in the Dublin City School District
A favorite teaching moment she’s had in Dublin:
“I had a little boy that was a very good student – he is at Jerome High School now – but he did not realize that he knew how to read. You have this in first grade: they are doing the word reading but don’t really know it is reading. Even though he was picking up books and doing it, in his mind, he didn’t understand he was reading. One day, I was sitting at a table, and he was sitting (close), his legs were crossed and he had a book in his hand. All of a sudden, he looked up at me with bright, shining eyes and said, ‘Mrs. Kok, I can read! I can read!’ It was so exciting.
A funny teaching moment:
“In the olden days – the late ‘70s and early ‘80s – we didn’t have an ESL (English as a Second Language) program. When the children came in, they came in, and you were simply told to teach them. I had a little Japanese boy – who did go through the Dublin schools all the way and got married here in Dublin – who came in not knowing a word of English. So we started labeling things for him. About the third or fourth week in, on a Friday morning, I said to the children, ‘Today we’re going to catch up.’ And his eyes got really bright, and he jumped up and said, ‘Ketchup! Ketchup! Ketchup!’ It was really memorable trying to explain to him it wasn’t the same kind of ‘ketchup.’”

Lynn Tucker
Kindergarten teacher, St. Brigid of Kildare School
Number of years taught: 27; 8 years at St. Brigid of Kildare
A favorite teaching moment she’s had in Dublin:
“I take the kindergartners over to the church to do the Stations of the Cross during Lent. As a whole school, you watch the priest go around to each of the stations, but our kids are little and they can’t see over the other kids. So I take our own small class, and they take their journals. After we go through all 14 (stations) they take their journals and illustrate and write whatever they can about one of the stations. Well, we got to about number 10, and it’s very sad, because (Jesus is) falling, he’s bleeding, and it’s kind of dark in the church at the time. A little boy in my morning class, Sam, says, ‘Mrs. Tucker, I think at the end of this story, I’m going to cry.’ I thought that was precious.”
A funny teaching moment:
“Kindergarten teachers have a lot of stories, but my very favorite was (at St. Brigid). I still use a record player, which most teachers don’t use anymore, but I have some good records that are worth using. I was putting this 33-1/3 on the record player. These kids have not even seen a record player, hardly. And this little boy comes up, and he says, ‘Mrs. Tucker, that’s the biggest CD I ever saw!’”

Ann Gates
Kindergarten teacher, Thomas Elementary School
Number of years taught: 29; 10 years at Thomas
A favorite teaching moment she’s had in Dublin:
“We always get a ton of teachers’ gifts at Christmas – lots of perfume and skin cream and so on. With the economy the way it is, (this past Christmas) I thought maybe it would be better instead to have the students bring in a can of soup, a bar of soap or a tube of toothpaste for a food pantry. We tied it into the curriculum by talking about wants and needs, and how not everybody has everything they need. The children were absolutely amazing, as were their parents. In some cases, I’m not even sure the parents were aware of what was going on, because I had one or two children who would bring a can or two a day out of their book bags, sort of like Robin Hood. Their empathy was so natural. Sometimes, as they grow old, they lose it, but they truly care for other people. It showed in the collection, which probably had a street value in excess of $600 worth of food and toothpaste. They exceeded my expectations with their donations. It was a meaningful, good experience for everybody that brought home the meaning of the holidays.”
A funny teaching moment:
“Little children have a natural empathy and honesty that always amazed me. I had a child that sat next to me during the beginning of a session. His nose started twitching, and he looked up at me and said, ‘Mrs. Gates, you smell just like my gerbil.’ After I caught my breath and thought about it, he was right – I had just taken my sweater out of a cedar chest, and I did smell like a gerbil. That wasn’t when I was teaching in Dublin, it was quite a while ago, but it has stayed in my mind. That natural honesty, how they say just what they feel and think without any pretense, it makes you stop and think a little bit.”

Kate Lohnes is assistant editor of Dublin Life.