Thank you, Mrs. Maxey

Two years ago, I sat on some bleachers in my daughter’s elementary school gym. Her kindergarten class was performing their end-of-year “Hoedown”.  It was the cutest, most hilarious, tears-streaming-down cheeks, darling school performance I have ever seen. And there was my girl’s teacher, twirling and swaying, mouthing words, directing movements, with 22 pairs of eyes fixed on her as they do-si-doed and kazooed around the gym.

Fast forward a year and my son is on the cusp of starting kindergarten at the same school, with the same teacher. I remember having a few weeks of panicky doubt – should we have had a third baby? Just like that, and Jack will be dancing at his Hoedown and that sweet, silly, wonderful five-year-old world of kindergarten will be gone. He hadn’t even had a first day in Mrs. Maxey’s class and I was already mourning saying goodbye to her.

Well, that day came, folks. Jack sauntered in the gym with his kindergarten friends, waving his hat, swingin’ his partner, warming his hands by the “campfire” and singing, “Come a ti yi yippee yippee yay”.

Kindergarten is oh, so sweet.

We have lots of friends who homeschool their children, and there are many moments that I consider the advantages of keeping my kids close at home and giving them a very individualized, very purposeful education. But our family has prayerfully and intentionally chosen to have our kids attend our neighborhood public school. How thankful I was when our first baby-turned-five-year-old landed in Mrs. Maxey’s class at Gause Elementary.

Mrs. Maxey is one of those teachers who seem born to teach. Her classroom is organized, bright, welcoming, with just the right visuals and tools at hand at the right time. Her default expression is a smile. She looks happy to be in that classroom, with those children. Her voice even smiles when she introduces a new sight word, a new math strategy, and reminds forgetful children of prior learning. Finger spaces between words are a joyful experience! Choosing books for one’s book box is a matter of great importance and fun. Seemingly small tasks, such as taking only three seconds at the drinking fountain and remembering your coat for recess are cheerfully recited, just as if she was saying them for the first time in her life, not the nine thousand and ninety-seventh.

Mrs. Maxey has eyes on the back of her head and can attend to many unrelated tasks at once. She can direct multiple parent volunteers, coordinate schedules with her team teacher, check neglected backpacks, remind just the right students to move their lunch tags to the correct slot, cajole another sentence from a distracted child, and deliver her son to his preschool class in the building. All in the five minutes before the bell rings.

Kindergartners have so much to learn. Like how to smile for a school picture.

She knows that teachers never stop learning. She goes to kindergarten teaching conferences during summer vacation and workshops on the weekends. When the Common Core came down last year, she created and found new activities for new standards, and she adjusts and modifies assessments and lessons year-to-year, week-to-week, hour-by-hour, even!

Most teachers breathe a sigh of relief and settle down to eat their lunches in the staff room or in the blessed quiet of their classrooms while their students raise ruckus in the cafeteria. Not Mrs. Maxey. She and her team teacher, Mrs. Goodling, scarf down their meal while the children are at recess, then during Kindergarten lunch, you will find them walking up and down the cafeteria benches. They twist open lids, poke straws into holes, wipe up messes, sweetly insist that children not neglect their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, tear open stubborn packages, and mediate arguments. They instruct upon the nuances of the compost bin, the recycle bin, and the trash bin. They heap on smiles and cheerful encouragement to kids who are Ready To Go Home.

And – Mrs. Maxey has spirit, yes she does. On October 31st, you might find her dressed as a “Despicable Me” minion; at the annual Sport-a-thon, she runs laps with her kinders; and on Muffins with Mom morning, there she is serving juice with a smile.

When Mrs. Maxey goes home, I know for a fact she does not collapse on the couch in exhaustion (as I would after a day like hers). Her police officer husband is off to work for the evening, and her name changes to “Mom”. She has two boys, one of whom is a 2nd grader in my daughter’s class. She makes dinner, drives to football practice, and supervises homework. The proof of consistent and caring parenting is evident in her sons.

Then there is the Hoedown. Mrs. Maxey pretty much had me at “hello”, but the Hoedown endeared her to me forever. It makes me consider adoption so I can have another kindergartner someday. How do two kindergarten teachers get 44 five- and six-year-olds to gallop in a line, kazoo on key, wave cowboy hats and swing “lassos” in synchrony, swing their partner, and sing “Happy Trails” while swaying to and fro without utter chaos erupting? Magic, I tell you. Plus they can all read and write and add and subtract and walk quietly in a line and treat their friends with kindness and respect. Nine months of marvelous kindergarten magic.

Thank you, Mrs. Maxey and Kindergarten teachers everywhere for the way you love our children and teach them how to read, write, listen, raise their hands, think about others, play kindly, take turns, eat respectfully in the cafeteria, work hard, forgive offenses, make good choices, and sing and dance. I don’t really want to say goodbye. I hope you don’t mind when I continue to wave into your doorway on my way to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classrooms.

Love, Ellie and Jack’s mom