Getting Better By Working With the Best: Part Two

As promised, this is your second edition of Getting Better by Working With the Best. The first was created last week and by popular demand (my sister said it was good), I am penning a follow up. Last week we celebrated the lovely Karen Moody, Jordan Lancaster, Aimee Ellis, Deb Carey and Andrea Gruber. The list does seem a little sexist I know, but Pre-K to 2 in general can be a little female heavy so no blame no shame right peeps?

This morning, I will begin by highlighting a good friend of mine, Stephanie Luiz. She has some nicknames, but I don’t think we’ve reached a level of our friendship where it’s okay for me to use them , so I will just refer to her as Stephanie. I think this is good for her fan base. In short, Stephanie used to live in Mass, moved to Maine and began as a pre-k ed tech and then interviewed for a position to teach kindergarten at LER. Let’s describe Stephanie shall we? I looked up paint samples on the Lowe’s website this morning. That’s an odd move for you Taryn, you might think. Are you doing a painting project? Hard Pass. I’m good on that. I looked up paint samples, because when you meet Stephanie, she will remind you exactly of the a yellowish paint called warm summer. Go ahead, look it up if you don’t believe me. Stephanie is one of the kindest, warmest, most maternal people I have ever had the privilege to know. When I taught kindergarten, she would swing open our adjoining doors, just like we were Dj and Kimmy from Full House, no I don’t like that comparison, neither of us wore scrunchies, okay just like Dawson and Joey from Dawson’s Creek, no that one is too sexual. Okay got it, she would swing open those doors just like Izzy and George on the first season of Grey’s Anatomy. We would hash out the day, we would complain about how our room smelled on a scale of zero to illegal. Not to mention, Stephanie has four kids everyone! Yes you heard that right, she has a classroom of 15 kinders and then four kids at home , ranging from third grade to high school. Needless to say, this time of quarantine has not been a reprieve for her. Stephanie’s other good qualities include looking ten years younger than she is, consuming coffee and chocolate in teams, being the kindness, warmest blanket for our young bunnies and kids of trauma at LER and being a hot sexy mama with good outfits. At one point last year, we were trying these new STEM kits in kindergarten. One lesson involved giving five year olds straws and having them spit their hot nasty virus infested air across a table to see if they could “move” an object. I’m sorry, but I would like to meet the sorry SOB that designed this lesson for a GROUP of CHILDREN. Stephanie walked by about 3 minutes and thirty seconds into the lesson, I was still sitting cross legged on the rug, holding hand sanitizer and humming Black Betty and she was so kind, so energetic. “How can I help?” I looked at her, what a sweet gem. So innocent, so friendly , so giving. “You get yourself out of here” I told her, “this ship is going down”. But that’s what you want isn’t it everyone? A co-worker and friend who asks how to lift you up, even when you are already going down.

My next featured co-worker is someone I have known for a good long while, because I taught both of her babies and then when they were a little bit grown, I got to know her as she took on an ed tech position and then an administrative assistant role. Did I type that out correctly? I would really hate to piss anyone off on a Saturday. It felt weird to type it out, because Heather is really the orchestrator of the whole school if I”m being honest. She is like what Vince McMahon is to WWE, what that Murphy guy is to American Horror Story, what Tina Fey is to any comedy. She’s just over here, quietly holding the place up. I KNOW she holds it up, because she had to go out on medical leave for a hot minute this past year and we did not know what to do without her. We were frozen into fear for a minute. It was kindergarten screening and we were supposed to set up. We all just kind of looked at each other confusedly and I said “is this the tablecloth that Heather uses?” “Is this the packets that Heather wants?” “I think we should go ask Heather you guys”. She just knows and does so much. She does so much , so quietly and for no attention what so ever. I am a damn good person, but if I were Heather, I would not be able to stand it. I would march in to the staff room and be like, “Hey guys, I just wiped down this staff table and cleaned the microwave for the fourth time today, maybe stop acting like infants and clean it your damn selves next time.” Mic Drop. She doesn’t though. She is a quiet, calm force to be reckoned with. Some days are harder than others I know, I have watched parents treat her like garbage when they come into the school, no doubt reeling from their own morning of chaos and Heather just stands up, takes the child’s hand and leads them into the cafeteria for breakfast. I hope parents look back on when she does this, I hope they go back to apologize. I hope they know, deep down in their own hearts, I just treated this person like crappola and she just treated my baby with the utmost respect and dignity and turned their whole day around. Do you see the uniqueness of Heather Kristan? I hope you do. I bet you have a Heather Kristan that you work with. On one last note, last year was one of the most difficult years I have had ever had in teaching. It was a combination of classroom behaviors, personal family stuff and grief and I was really struggling day-to-day at work. I don’t know if all my co-workers knew the hard time I was having, but I would go in to see Heather at lunch and I would say “everything is going to be okay right?” And she would say absolutely. Sometimes she would hug me, sometimes she would just hold up her chocolate tin. Ahhh Bless Her.

The next staff member you need to know about, is the wonderful Kris Canning. I JUST began working with Kris this year, and we ALREADY are fast friends. She dropped me muffins during the power outage, her chickens feed my kids breakfast. We both know anxiety can only be combatted by being our best selves, and so we do that some days and give in to it on other days, before exercising it right out of our systems. Kris was described to me by a mutual friend, as one of the nicest people you will ever meet. This is a perfect description of her. She is good right to her core, just one of the best people I am lucky enough to know, let a lone work with. I think when God put Ted Bundy and Charles Manson on this Earth, not to mention commercials during Hulu shows and wait lines at the airport, He said to himself , alright alright, I have given these people enough struggle, I will let them have Kris Canning, and so there she is. A gift. I have learned so much from her this year teaching second grade. I love how independent second graders are, but she is constantly telling me they are still 7 and 8. It is so helpful to be reminded of this when there are common core standards, NWEA tests, RTI meetings. These kids have faces and their faces are 7. Slow it down for them. Be present. Read the best books, dance to the silliest songs, take two days for a hard math lesson instead of bull dozing them on. Can you see how lucky I am? She also is an incredible Momma to her two girls, and a constant energizer bunny, lifting others up at work, when their lives have dumped another hail storm on them. In a word. Selfless.

My last featured player, is a silent one. She works in the cafeteria and rarely gets any attention for her Glinda good deeds. Her name is Emily Pearl. Emily has worked at LER since I have been there and I”m not sure how long in total. She watches over the kids daily and calls me when she notices one who is hungry hasn’t come to breakfast lately. If I actually get to work early enough and go down to see her, to tell her that a student is hungry, she does a brisk Marilla Cuthbert nod and I know they will be taken care of at lunch time. When the remote learning began, she had to completely reorganize meal planning and the way she went about her business, but she adapted faster and more efficiently than the rest of us and because of her, hundreds of kids receive meals daily even though school is not open. She will never ask for the attention, never demand to be noticed, but she is the one in the back, holding up the entire operation. Feel free to comment on this blog, on the facebook page, or just to your spouse if you agree with all my above sentiments and know these lovelies, or if you have people at work you can compare them too. Let’s boast about our people, if we are around them long enough, a certain amount of their good is bound to rub off on us.