This morning I sat and watched the sun come over the ridge behind the house. I commented to my husband that it came up farther South than it did a few weeks ago. Bruce pointed out that it moved back and forth with the seasons. I nodded and told him that I remembered learning this in fourth grade.
“Mrs. Vavarina taught me that,” I said.
I went on to explain that Mrs. Vavarina was my favorite teacher. She didn’t teach us solely by telling us, she taught us mostly by showing us. Every morning we had an “opening routine.” It included taking turns leading the pledge of allegiance, picking which patriotic song we would sing, and marking where the sun was on the chalk board.
Yes, I said marking where the sun was. By doing this every morning at the same time we became very aware of what the sun did. It is a lesson I think of every time I notice the sun changing its placement.
That wasn’t the only thing she taught us. She—like many other teachers—read to us each day from a chapter book. To be honest, I don’t remember any books that were read to me by previous teachers. But, two of my favorite books were introduced by her. They are Brighty of the Grand Canyon and Charlotte’s Web. Of course, she isn’t solely responsible for my love of books—my parents worked hard to surround us with books and instill a love of reading—but fourth grade is my first memory of the anticipation of waiting each day to start “reading time”. Maybe she did an exceptionally good job of picking where to stop each day, I don’t know!
Another Mrs. Vavarina tradition was the sweet potato experiment. I’m sure many teachers do this but it was amazing for me to watch that sweet potato sprout just because we poked toothpicks in it and stuck it in water. Awesome! We didn’t have a garden in town and I hadn’t spent time at the ranch yet so my experience with growing things was rather nonexistent. I was intrigued.
The other thing I remember learning from Mrs. Vavarina was the importance of complete sentences. She would NOT let us write a one word answer to a question in our schoolwork. We didn’t have “worksheets” then. Those my age will remember that the questions were at the end of the chapter or section, the teacher would assign some or all and you would have to get a sheet of paper from your tablet—mine was one of those “Chief” tablets—and answer the assigned questions. Mrs. Vavarina was a stickler for the complete answer response. For instance if the question was, “What is the capitol of Nebraska?” your answer should look like this:
What is the capitol of Nebraska?
The capitol of Nebraska is Lincoln.
In perfect cursive, of course.
I still, to this day find myself always answering questions in complete sentences.
I wished this morning that I could call Mrs. Vavarina and thank her, but I don’t know where she is. I suspect she is now in heaven since my memory of her places her at least ten years older than my parents, maybe more. Maybe when I get to heaven I can find her and tell her that this little chatty girl became a nurse and author. I’ll also tell her that she is partly responsible for this. I won’t tell her, however, how many sentence fragments I like to use in my writing.
Definitely not that!
