Lessons to be learned

I started my adult life wanting to be a teacher. It was my constant desire. After a while I settled on nursing. However, I married young and started a family and there simply was no room for nursing school or college at the time. Years pass quickly and you keep pushing those ideas back until one day you wake and it's too late. I thought on it quite a bit when I was younger but as my life choices changed and I found owning my own business to be quite fulfilling as I raised our family.

I guess what I remember the most about wanting to teach was the effect my teachers had on me.
I vaguely remember my 1st grade teacher, Mrs Glaze. My 2nd grade teacher was a family friend, making Mrs Rainwater a favorite and I hold fond memories of her still. In a time when women surely weren't valued as they should have been as leaders, I was surrounded by women of strong character and dedication to their field.
My third grade teacher made a marked impression on me. Our little country school probably didn't hold 400 children, off a rural road in West Jefferson county. It would be the place that shaped my thoughts and dreams. The last classroom on the right, almost to the playground was our home that year. Mrs Cirillo's room. She was a tall, slender woman with beautifully expressive eyes and fair skin, one of the sweetest godly women I ever knew. I watched each day to see what earrings she would wear, she seemed to have an endless collection.
She was an adventurer who found beauty everywhere she looked and explored everything around her. She spoke often of her travels with her cherished August Cirillo. She and August lived in Brazil and she taught school there for a time. I remember thinking, that's what I will do.

Among other things, I gained a love of birds in her classroom. I remember her asking if someone might build us a bird house right outside our classroom window where we could attract different species. When she posed the question to the class more like an idea not really an inquiry, I promptly shot my hand to the sky and waved violently... my daddy can build a bird house, my daddy can! [mostly because I saw my daddy as a kind of superman but he really could build anything] He was a carpenter and brick mason in his early years. I'm sure he was always thrilled when I volunteered him for things but he never complained.
Soon we had not one but two sweet birdhouses. Each built with care and a large feeding area on the other side of the long board daddy put up to hold the houses. I remember watching him outside the window and being so proud to have him put those little wooden bird homes at eye level outside our windows. We fed many birds outside our classroom that year and watched babies hatch and fly the nest.
To a child in a rural community, a dreamer like Mrs Cirillo was more like a magician. The furthest I ever traveled as a child was to my aunt and uncle's home in Pensacola. I could hardly wrap my mind around Mrs Cirillo's travels around the world. My goodness, she was practically a movie star. She told us all about people, weather, other cultures and traditions. I remember her kindness and laughter as she brought her treasures and shared them with us. I could be a bit of a talker but I was never talking in her class, I might miss something.

Third grade was apparently a "growth spurt" year for me as well. There was Mrs Cirillo assuring me, everyone else would catch up in time. She would say, "stand tall, show people who you are." Towering over my friends heads, it was great comfort at only 9 yrs old. I would later go on to have other great teachers but Mrs Cirillo was where I gained great respect and admiration for the teaching profession. I realized she answered a calling when she became a teacher, a mentor and friend to all she met.

I have friends and relatives who answered that same call, who shaped and some still do, the lives of children in their classrooms. Some adventurers, introverts, all encouragers and friends. The Bible has many verses and passages on being an encourager.
One of my favorites is in Proverbs 25, verse 11. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. 
Mrs. Cirillo gave me a view of life I would likely not have considered otherwise. She made me think, she made me curious. I am better for knowing her. I believe it was Albert Einstein who said, "when we stop learning we start dying."

In our home, to the right of our television cabinet was a bookcase filled with Childcraft and Encyclopedia. Before the age of "google" this is what we used for reference and research. Not all my friends had encyclopedia, some went to the library to do research, some came over to use them or borrowed one. It's how we prepared for assignments and special projects. The Childcraft were a simple source for children to learn. There were more than 20 volumes in all, some devoted to fictional stories, fairy tales, craft projects and poems. Most however were for learning- history, technology, medicine and animals.

                 

Daddy read Repunzel to me over and over (it was my favorite) the year I had the flu for three weeks. Mama read poems and fairy tales to her children from the pages of those books. We poured countless hours over them for school projects. As a young mother, my children pounced into mama's lap with their respective childcraft of choice when they visited her or they agreed on Volume 3 for the fairy tales and poems. If there was a lively debate on any subject and we needed more information, mama grabbed the corresponding encyclopedia for reference. Learning was a constant in our home.

Teachers, like Madge Cirillo planted the seed for my love of reading and curiosity about other places. I have always known, being a teacher is a calling. A God-given talent which requires great personal sacrifice.
Every teacher who steps behind a desk is saying, "Okay, I have room in my heart and life for a few hundred more children. Let's do this." If that isn't a calling, I don't know what is.
Mrs Cirillo died quite a few years back at the age of 96. I can only imagine she continued learning for a very long time.
I wish I could thank her now for all the things she taught me, the curiosity she spurned and the love of travel and adventure she gave us all.