A couple of garden animals and a Facebook meme took my mind back to the classroom. It never takes much. As they say, “Once a teacher, always a teacher.” My first garden discovery this week was an anole on a milk-and-wine lily plant. He was doing his best to hide in plain sight. The second discovery was a yellow swallowtail butterfly, flitting from flower to flower, seeming to say, “Look at me! Look at me!”
I thought back to school days when I taught kindergarten, second grade, and junior high by turns. It really didn’t matter what the grade level was, the students came into my class with a range of personalities between the anole and the butterfly. By the end of the first day of school, if I was in an observant teacher mode, I had spotted the butterflies and the anoles in class – sometimes by the end of the first hour! I knew early on in my career how easily I could get bamboozled into paying attention to the ones who demanded it. I also knew that the child who quietly did her work, turned it in on time, and seemed content to remain out of the spotlight also needed to be seen.
The Facebook meme addressed this phenomenon with the admonition, “Be the teacher who notices the kids that don’t get noticed.” As much as I would like to say I never fell prey to that temptation to forget that quiet child who caused no trouble and worked at melting into the furniture, I’m sure those butterflies in my classes sometimes took more than their share of my attention. However, one of my treasured end-of-year gifts that still stands in a place of honor atop my office bookcase is a cross-stitched sampler from the mother of a little girl who got her work done and demanded no special attention.
I would like to suggest that the meme might apply to more than teachers. Perhaps you know a quiet child who could use a little notice.