Mrs. Shorts was a fabulous teacher. She created integrated units for her third and fourth graders that included art, music, history, and literature. Everything about her class room was perfection. The bulletin boards were covered in no fade paper. There were house plants hanging in front of the bank of windows on one side and a huge mural of whatever driving force in the curriculum was the theme for the year.
As the year progressed each child was featured as student of the week with a portrait and a short biography. “Tina has two brothers and a cat. She likes to play tether ball, hop scotch, and baseball. She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up.”
There were map projects made in relief with salt, water, and flour. One year it would be California, the next the United States. She was thorough in preparing her projects and had plywood bases cut for each child. She had determined that using cardboard led to floppy broken maps that didn’t hold up well. The maps were beautifully painted in colors matching the geography: green for valleys, yellow for deserts, brown for mountains, blue for rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Mrs. Shorts dealt with all the kids in a calm voice, but oh! that woman could talk! She’d be having a conversation with someone while she was correcting papers or putting up a new bulletin board…. Talking on and on about the same subject raising different points as if in a one person argument with herself. She would never look up and so wouldn’t really know if the person was still there listening to her or not.
During one memorable diatribe Mrs. Lu had to use the restroom. When she got back ten minutes later, Mrs. Shorts was still going on about the initial topic never having looked up once to see if Mrs. Lu was still there or not.
Each year around March or April the subject of Earth Day would come up. Mrs. Shorts was an avid environmentalist, a big proponent of Earth Day. She wanted the whole school to do something for Earth Day. Most of the time it never worked out that way and her class alone would end up doing a gardening project or doing a fund raiser to donate money to the rain forest.
It was difficult for such a strong environmentalist to live within a staunch logging community where big trucks would haul big redwoods down the hill every single day. Mrs. Shorts tsked and shook her head. “That one looks like an old growth tree to me,” she said under her breath, but all the kids heard her.
One boy unafraid and proud of his heritage claimed it, “I’ll bet my pa cut that tree down!” The rest of the kids nodded silently to acknowledge him.
Mrs. Shorts tsked again and couldn’t keep herself from saying, “That’s just terrible. Terrible.”
Mrs. Lu said nothing. She had too much respect for the hard working people who lived in the community. As far as she was concerned, they managed their forest, mining, and logging interests with thoughtful planning. Still, she vowed to plant a tree every year on Earth Day. This year she thought she’d plant a palm tree since she liked the idea of palm trees and redwoods co-existing.
In the fall of that year all the kids planted daffodils in every corner of the school. The yellow flowers announcing spring were beautiful! Another year California poppies and lupines were added on the hill over-looking the playground. Up and down the canyon on both sides of the road leading up to the school someone scattered Forget-Me-Nots. Year after year the flowers bloomed reminding everyone about Earth Day and how even one small act can make a difference.
(First published 4/23/12)
