Community, Connections, and Kids

That’s a question I ask our retirees each spring as I attempt to cobble together a few of their thoughts, insights, and recollections to convey in this space.

Just your basic question, I figured. Turns out it isn’t. As I learned early on, it almost invariably causes respondents to pause. Then there’s a moment of reflection, perhaps visualization, as they try to summon just the right words to describe their emotions as the clock ticks down on their careers in education. Occasionally, there’s a tear or two or three.

 

That, you see, is what the Collegiate experience can do to you.

 

“Thinking about retiring and talking to other teachers about it, I thought I was ready,” said Karen Hurd, whose 31-year career on North Mooreland Road – most recently as the Lower School technology resource teacher – is coming to an end. “I’m going to miss the kids. The relationships with grown-ups, of course, but all those little things that kids say to you. And the possibilities. We sing that song, I Am a Promise. That’s what you see. That’s so rewarding.”

 

This afternoon, Collegiate will honor Karen and 10 of her colleagues at a reception in the Sharp Academic Commons.

 

The others are Sally Chambers (Middle School guidance counselor, 33 years), Allen Chamberlain (head librarian, Saunders Family Library, 31 years), Ellen Clore (Lower School science teacher, 25 years), Helen Coulson (director of instrumental music, 25 years), Holly Smith (LS art teacher, 24 years), Robert Moore (assistant director of facilities, 20 years), Laura Fields (LS assistant head, 16 years), Stojan and Zrinka Yerkic (housekeeping staff, 20 years each), and Ray Crouch (campus mail, 10 years).

All told, they represent 255 years of dedicated service. Karen and her three Lower School colleagues have a combined 96 years. Earlier this week, I checked in with them to gauge their feelings about their imminent departures.

 

“I’m looking forward to the next chapter,” said Laura Fields, “but one of the things I hadn’t considered before I made my decision was the loss of the community that I’ve been a part of. This community really means a lot to me. I’ll stay connected, but it will be a different kind of connection.”

 

So is this a sad time or a happy time or bittersweet? I asked her.

 

“It’s happy,” she replied immediately, “but I’m leaving the ‘kid-fix’ that I have here. I’ve always considered the students here my kids. I’ll miss that part. I’m using every opportunity to savor the moments I have in the company of teachers in their classrooms, giving them feedback on their instruction, being with the kids, and getting out of my office and immersing myself into the life of the Lower School.”

 

About 15 years ago, Jill Hunter, then the Lower School head, approached Ellen Clore, Collegiate class of 1970, and asked if she would oversee the garden with both crops and flowers that was to be located in a grassy space on the west side of the academic buildings.

 

She readily accepted. She became the master planner. The garden became her passion. She nurtured it through the extremes of Central Virginia weather and found joy in sharing the experience with the Lower School community.

 

“It was fun working with the kids,” she said. “We planted a lot of crops, they would harvest them and eat them. We grew onions. They got sent home or we gave them to the cafeteria. Potatoes got sent home. Things like sugar snap peas and tomatoes…they could pick them off the vine and eat them.”

You have a long history with Collegiate, I said. You and your three children are graduates. You’ve seen the school from different angles. What’s the experience meant?

“It’s a place where everybody’s learning,” she said. “I think I’ve learned as much about parenting and teaching from everyone else here as I’ve brought to my teaching.”

 

In her time at Collegiate, Holly Smith has instilled in her students not just an appreciation for art but an understanding of the importance of compassion for those less fortunate.

 

For several years, she’s overseen a project in which her second grade students have connected with Jam’s Academy in Bertuoa, Cameroon.

 

This past fall, her first graders illustrated a book (which she wrote) entitled Ari and Isla Ride Out the Storm based on a true story of children who were evacuated when Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast and shared it with their counterparts in Texas.

 

“The kids were able to use their art and connect kids in the Houston area in the same way the second graders connected with Cameroonians,” she said. “What’s been so great is to instill in kids that they can do anything.”

 

So what’s it all meant? I asked for the fourth time on my visit to the Lower School.

 

As is usually the case, she paused, then began.

 

“New to the Richmond area, I started at 30 percent time,” she said. “I didn’t even know what Collegiate was. I kind of had my little toe in the door. I had no idea it would become a community that would allow me to develop as a teacher, a maker of art, and an encourager of children to use their creative abilities. It’s been a great run.”

  -- Weldon Bradshaw