One more time I asked myself what do I want to be when I grow up? At 67 it still resonated. I tell people, I’m no longer immature, I’m young at heart. The last time I asked that question, I became a Park Ranger. I wanted to do something that would be new and fun. And the answer came back, an elementary school teacher. I didn’t want a job, but a job like volunteer gig. On a school tour for Adam I asked the principal how I might do that. She was enthusiastic and told me first to go to the district and get cleared as a volunteer, get a badge and we’d go from there.
Lisa Kantor and I exchanged a couple of emails and we were getting ready to start. In her last email she asked what experience I had. I told her I was a kindergarten Sunday School teacher. I didn’t hear back from her. She didn’t respond to any of my emails or phone calls. She was unreachable. I think maybe Ms. Kantor didn’t want a Sunday School teacher at her school. By that time I had stopped qualifying my church attendance as being Unitarian. Be honest, let people think what they want. I was in good company with Jimmy Carter. I think maybe I’d just been stereotyped as a “Christian Evangelical.” That didn’t feel good. Even Evangelicals have a right to be in our schools.
Not long after in February 2014 I was registering Adam for Transitional Kindergarten at Colorado Elementary School in Richmond and I asked to speak to the principal there. I met Linda Cohen, a legendary principal in Richmond Schools. We talked and she was quite eager to have me as a volunteer. “When can you start?” she asked. “Tomorrow,” I answered. And so I did, the very next day. Linda had me go to each class from 3rd to 6th grade and ask the teacher what they would like me to do. The first year I tutored math, babysat or just distracted disruptive kids, worked with a new immigrant from Mexico who did not want to learn English and worked one on one or in small groups.
I volunteered two days a week. At lunchtime I went to the teacher’s room. I met some teachers, I was part of Coronado Elementary School. After a few months, one morning I got up with that feeling, oh god, I don’t want to go school today. A moment later I realized, wow!, just like a real job. I was showing up.
The next year Adam started Transitional Kindergarten at Coronado and the first day I asked Linda what she wanted me to do. She was busy and said, “Well why don’t you just go to Transitional Kindergarten for now.” We’ll figure it out later.
I found a home. There was no later. For the next six years I was a volunteer teacher’s aid in Transitional Kindergarten. I worked with Licet Santos, the regular teacher’s aid and Pat Boyne, the teacher. We were a team. I did what I could to help, supporting the kids, encouraging them and enjoying them. Little people have always fascinated me, the amount they learn just to get started in life and the physical changes are astounding, learning to walk, to talk, and in TK to be part of a group and that squiggles and symbols can have meaning. It is their first formal step in learning to learn.
My TKers were learning more in that year than graduate students at Berkeley would learn in a year. I was in awe at what we were part of. These kids were laying the very foundation of their education. They were learning life skills. Recess was just as important as the classroom. They were being domesticated, like wild horses they needed to be gentled. For some kids it was their first experience in the system. They couldn’t leave, it wasn’t voluntary and making a scene didn’t help.
One day I was telling my good friend Bob Weiss about what I was doing and he said, “You know these kids are going to remember you for the rest of their lives.” I hadn’t thought of it, but of course. What a responsibility, memories of Mr. Jack into the next century.
Licet, Pat and I worked together for six years. Licet was wonderful, local, very bright, she should have been a teacher herself, but after a marriage, two kids and a divorce, she needed to earn a living and it was our good fortune to have her as a teacher’s aid. Pat is a professional teacher and did the magic of curriculum, lesson planning, pacing and all the paperwork. I appreciated that I got to be a part of teaching children hands on, but I didn’t have to do the bureaucracy. My style is more Ranger than Teacher and with Pat and Licet, that worked.
In 2019 things began to come apart. Pat was getting toward the end of her career and had a hellacious commute. She had injuries and health problems. Licet was having a hard time too. There were sick days and substitutes and it wasn’t going very well and then we got a substitute who stayed, Miss Chavez. She was a graduate of Cal but had been a truck driver between LA and San Francisco. It was her first year as a substitute and we were fortunate to get her. She didn’t have the experience of Pat Boyne, but she had a lot of heart, wanted to do well, and loved the children. So it was good and then in March of 2020 Covid came. We were doing distance learning. I tried to join in, but a teacher’s aid on Zoom is just one more complicating element and it didn’t work.
In September of 2020 I didn’t participate but when in person classes started again in the Fall of 2021 I came back. Miss Boyne was the TK teacher again but struggling with the administration over medical leave. She mostly didn’t show up. We had a series of substitutes and just no teacher at all. We did have Miss Pinkston, a wonderful teacher, She was the new Reading Resource person at the school and it wasn’t her job to take over TK. She did what she could to help.
I needed something more consistent. I talked to my friend Lourdes, a great 2nd grade teacher there. She recommended I ask Terra Doby, the kindergarten teacher if she would like a volunteer. She did and we started working together.
What good fortune. Terra Doby is an amazing teacher. If Kindergarteners are a little wild, she is a Kindergarten Whisperer. Her oft repeated phrase is, “Ignore to learn.” And so the class seemed wild from the outside, slowly she began to work her magic on the kids and all but one became happy students, and even the most difficult child improved, got a little better. Instead of letting the difficult kids take over the class she was able to gently bring them in. She didn’t let them distract her and the class. They were ignoring to learn. It was a wonderful experience for me.
During the summer break, Adam and I went to lunch with Miss Doby. Afterwards Adam said, “I wish we had a teacher like Miss Doby in our school.” She is gentle, loves her job and is very good at it.
For their own reasons the administration decided Miss Doby was going to the 4th grade the following year. She asked me if I was staying in Kindergarten or might want to come along with her. I tell my friends that after 7 years in Kindergarten I’ve been promoted to the fourth grade.
This year has been different, fourth graders are a lot different than Kinders, but they’re still wonderful kids. Working with Miss Doby has been a pleasure. It’s enjoyable just to watch how she teaches. It's fascinating to watch a Kindergarten teacher who is very different in the 4th grade but just as good. As her aid, I do what I can to make that easier, copying, cutting, sorting books, just doing a lot of the time consuming jobs that leave her with more time to teach. I also do assessments. I tutor a little and sometimes I walk around and just help. I’m older than when I started this and I found two days a week was taking it out of me. I cut back to one day a week and it made it much more enjoyable.
I love being around the kids, participating in their growth, helping where I can and being Miss Doby’s assistant, doing whatever I can to make her job easier and give her more time to teach. I am amazed and delighted how much the kids appreciate my being there, how they miss me when I’m not there and happy to see me when I return.
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