My mom was also a high school teacher. She started teaching secretarial skills, everything from typing to shorthand, but evolved into a computer teacher. This was taken at her retirement party. That's my girl, Grace, when she was a baby!
When you think about appreciating those who have taught you well, do you also think of your mother? I do! She has taught me so much. I think of all the lessons she has modeled for me throughout my life in topics from boys to academia to love in and of family to the meaning of true success. I looked to her (even as a slightly rebellious child) for a standard of morals, I asked for her assistance in grammar when typing up an essay (even through college), and now I heed her lessons in balancing my life, work and passions (even if I think I can do it all myself.) All the while, she is my teacher, one with the honored and sacred name of Mother.
When I think about how I am the first teacher to my own children, I have to pause and process that. Not only am I (along with my husband) their first, but we are also their most consant teachers. That age-old teaching practice of modeling for my students is also played out daily with my own children. Just like my students in class, my children take in bits and pieces of what I’m teaching them by my words and my actions.
There is a lot of talk at school about the importance the family has in relation to students’ success. We also know how vital it is to create and sustain a positive collaboration between school and home. As my students left me yesterday afternoon, Mexican inspired Mother’s Day cards in hand, I couldn’t help but think about how much those boys and girls look up to the woman in their lives: mothers, grandmothers, even aunts and big sisters. They are our students’ first teachers.
Sunday, I will celebrate Mother’s Day with my extended family at my house complete with cook-out, birthday celebrations and lots of flowers. Through this busy time getting ready for this fun event, it’s important for me to stop and think about my mothers: my grandmothers, my mother-in-law, and my one and only Mom. They all play such a large role in who I am. They help to shape me through what they have taught me and continue to teach me each day!
To all the Mothers – I wish you a wonderful week end!
~EMP
Yes, Mrs. Peterson, I agree that good parenting can make the difference in a child’s success. I was fortunate to have a mother, father and grandmother in the home, all with the same goal–my success. However, during the Jim Crow era, it was my mother who led in my education, preparing me for a college education so I would be ready professionally when the U.S. racial climate changed.
Before the changes, Walter Cronkite brought stories into America’s living rooms from Birmingham, Alabama, about bombings, murders and street violence against school children my age. I stared at the television screen afraid. My mother said I had to be brave and go to my Jim Crow schools, schools she respected but did not trust to give me the academic training she knew I would need to graduate from a major white university, which she wanted me to attend for an unquestionable education and start in life.
So, my mother took my education into her own hands. “Read this book; read that book. Work these problems. Study. Go to the library. Make a science project. Be smart. Compete. Run for this; run for that. Enter your story. Stand up straight. Hold your head up high. Speak clearly. Practice your piano lessons. Go to college.” She lived to see that her efforts on me were not in vain. I graduated from college, had a career in journalism and became a published author. Every day is Mother’s Day for some of us.