A precious day at Love Creek Elementary

I substituted at Love Creek Elementary School the other day; I’ve been there before and love returning. Perhaps it’s because of the overwhelming warmth, the supportive nature of colleagues and staff, the innocence of the students and their conspicuous curiosity and love combine to create a hum that’s so tangible. The generous and spontaneous hugs certainly are restorative; I gratefully received at least five in my few hours there. 

The class of 20 first-graders was not without challenges, but lessons of determination, of curiosity, of kindness, of listening and appreciating prevailed. I was inspired by the one first-grader who took extra time to finish her assignment, to fully write her story, one complete with basic elements of character and setting and challenge and solution. Or, by another, who, while heading to the playground, noticed coats blowing like tumbleweeds, and she, on her own, piled up the jackets to limit the tumbling. Or, the other youngster who, no matter the broken coat zipper, braved the wind and cold looking for four-leafed clovers, a search which provoked questions like why the four leaves, was clover a wildflower, who are its neighbors; we both looked more closely, appreciating the small mustards and mints nearby. Another student came by, and she too full of curiosity seemed to be admiring the blue sky, while noticing the many beautiful blooms blowing from a neighboring cherry.

Too, I was heartened by noticing, throughout the hallways, the recycling bins full of paper and aluminum cans (the gold of recycling world, one recycled can saving enough energy to power a computer for several hours) teaching the entire community the value of resources, their finite nature, the importance of conserving energy and of appreciating renewables and of addressing climate change, the most urgent challenge before us agreed on by over 2,000 of the world’s leading climatologists.

I continue to learn, even after more than 30 years of teaching at St. Andrew’s and elsewhere, after graduate degrees in ecology while studying the sustainable living and population dynamics of ospreys and black bears, and even after qualifying to substitute (e.g. complete with background checks, fingerprinting, nearly $200…), to be with our remarkable students, particularly these first-graders. I learn from them, and I am restored by working with them, our future leaders, ones who hold tight to truth, to curiosity, to innocence and kindness, to looking out for one another; may we all learn from them, follow their example, and be inspired.