Closing a House: Opening Doors

Since my mother passed away a year ago, it has been a never ending process of clearing out her house. The first things to go were her clothes and clutter from drawers and wardrobes.  With the whole family together for the funeral, we enjoyed reminiscing as we waded through old photos and knickknacks that had been gifts from all of us over the years. She kept everything. Several old pieces passed down from our grandparents were set aside for someone to research the value of: silver cutlery, Chinese vases and original paintings. 

With my siblings and I living all around the world, we don't have the chance to just get together and chat.  But now we were forced to. There were decisions to be made, and work to be done.  I was able to accompany my brother to do the probate paperwork, and support him in the tedious tasks of form filling and bill paying. It was an incite into what my eldest brother, who lived nearest my mother, had quietly done for her care over the years. 

Traveling over to London, I soon found that the job of clearing the house ready for sale was too much for one person. Another brother arrived from the US and made use of his British drivers license to start making trips to the local dump. I made contact with local auction houses to see if we could put a value on the antiques. In the end we decided to make a list of pictures of what we had, and share it with family and friends. Family members asked me to save for them anything that reminded them of mom or grandma. We contacted her local church and several members came round to pick up items. I suddenly found myself interacting with old friends and getting to know neighbors who new my mother. Two of them invited me round for a meal.

We needed help moving some furniture and were fortunate to find a neighbor with a van. We bonded over taking apart wardrobes and shifting sofas. He gave us advice on how to get rid of other items.

By now my contacts list is growing to include people in this neighborhood of London.  My mother was very fortunate to spend her last years here, surrounded by such caring people. One neighbor drives a mail van and delivered some boxes to the house. Another came and took cuttings of my mother's roses. The lady in the fish & chips shop just round the corner remembers her also. And one sweet neighbor brought around a family who is interested in buying the house!

A local charity will pick up items like electronics and they very kindly came by with a truck. The driver was very interested in my grandfather's carved antique chest and we had to explain how we were not ready to part with that yet. We ended up storing that in yet another brother's garage along side the old diaries and translation work to which my parents had dedicated their life.

My brothers and I took a break from clearing out furniture and papers, to visit my parents' grave. They are buried in a wonderfully secluded little old church in Kent. After putting flowers on their graves, we visited others  belonging to family members that we only remembered from our childhood. Then a visit to nearby Canterbury to visit our cousin took us right past the big old house we holidayed in together.  More old photos started to fill in the blanks of those I never met, like my grandfathers, and others that have passed away more recently.  We discussed together the making of headstones and decided to add some Kaiwa language to the back of the stone. 

This short visit to take care of my mother's affairs has been a breath of fresh air. Not only have I, with help, managed to clear, sort, donate and share the majority of my mother's belongings, (and there were many!) but I connected with kind and caring people who loved my mother and were willing to help.  After being bogged down with grief, all the tasks of closing up a loved one's life, and being so far away and isolated from family, I am now feel I can breathe again, and sort out what is important and necessary when looking to the future. 

A Carefully Filed Life

 

For years my parents owned a large filing cabinet where all their papers were stored. Being rather cumbersome and ugly, it was stored just outside the back door. In the clearing out of my mother's house I had been putting off even opening the drawers and doing what I saw as a tedious job. My mother kept careful records of bank accounts, receipts, bills and instruction manuals.... nothing interesting.  

As I started to pull out the years' worth of printed material, I came across a family tree dating back to 1720 and with my name at the very bottom.  This is my mother's family and occupations next to the names included hand-loom weaver, packman, coal miner. My mother's birth certificate had my grandfather's profession as chemist and druggist. I also found a neatly handwritten recipe for 'Pomade Divine': a soothing and healing ointment he made and sold in his store. Liquid opium seems to be the magic ingredient!

There were several handwritten notes and letters that caught my eye amongst the glossy brochures and ads. This old game, "Sailor Bill Writes Home!', is a early form of mad libs from my mother's childhood. While I was able to take a quick picture with my phone, players in those days had to write out the whole message of this "most laughable game ever invented" on paper. I found many other handwritten letters, mainly written on old aerogram stationary for posting overseas. One caught my eye, written from Japan by my cousin, with condolences on the death of my aunt in 1977. Nearly 50 years later I was able to share this instantly with family. 

This got me thinking about what my mother chose to save and file away in this old filing cabinet. Yes, there were important documents: old passports (pre/during/post EU); copies of birth and marriage certificates; death certificates; and tax documents. However, the more sentimental items seemed to be in the files simply because my mother couldn't bring herself to throw them away, and in this way left them for future generations to discover.

It brought a smile to my face to find all the cards from former students telling my mother how much they loved their teacher! Then there were the drawings made by her grandchildren, and all my A/O test results. Where my EAB diploma was in my possession, my mother kept the program of the school's "Tenth Annual Graduation".  In an unmarked folder I found a brief diary of a family trip made by my younger brother when he was about 6 years old. This trip in southern Brazil included a lot of fishing and bird watching. My father created lists of birds for us to find, and my brother had made drawings of some. 

My father featured heavily in the files.  I did not find a family tree, but lots of information was collected and stored on his family. My grandfather, who I never met because he died at the age of 42, is described on the birth certificate as a physician and surgeon.  However I found evidence that he had served in WW1 as a soldier in France; worked in a hospital in China where he met his wife, my grandmother; was later ordained and became a curate back in southern England.  After his death, my father, age 11, attended a boarding school in Kent, and I have just read through all his school reports until he went off to Oxford at 18. Since this was a Cathedral Choir school, it seems the notes of his progress with piano and violoncello were most detailed. His last report read: " He has worked very hard this term & made himself a reasonable, though clumsy pianist. His general musicianship is good and music will be a lasting joy to him." 

Several other curious finds involving my father were a published article written about Swalecliffe's birds 50 years ago, and a traffic violation for speeding on Highway 19, Minnesota. It took me a minute to realize that the date of the ticket was my wedding.  I wonder if that ever got paid! Also, a handwritten copy of the preface of a 2009 Marshallese Bible, obviously research that my mother wanted to pass on to me. And a copy of a check friends and colleagues gave to finance a trip to my brother's college graduation in the US.

And so my life is richer for finding out these bits of information. I think my mother was thinking of making a scrap book to pass this on in a more organized way, but the file marked 'SCRAPBOOK' was empty. She must have just been too busy living. 

Without knowing it, her filing away of these keepsakes, and giving me the chance to 'discover' them, ensured that they would not be forgotten or simply tossed away.  Now, the question is: do I organize them into a book, or do I leave them somewhere to be found by future generations?

The End of a Career

 

After teaching in a dozen schools across six countries on 5 continents, I would like to end on a high. I am feeling more tired these days, more skeptical and less interested in earning money. My current superintendent just sent me a sealed note I had written to myself about why I got into teaching. The unfortunate fact is, I fell into teaching due to the fact that most expected me to be a teacher like my mother, and I wanted to explore the world.  Overseas teaching allowed me to do both, and the life style seemed to suit our family. 

 I have had moments of success that have convinced me to stay in teaching, and other catastrophic failures that haunt me in my dreams.  I desperately want some highs to minimize the low points when I look back over my 31 years of teaching. However, I am finding out that it doesn't work just to "try harder". Students will let you do all the work if you are not careful, and that means I end up learning more than they do. I also do not enjoy all the policing and ineffective motivating I do in my Media lessons.  How to make lessons fun and still be educationally engaging without the students running riot?

So in the last few weeks before I retire, I have been thinking of how I can make a difference to those who need it the most.  Although most schools I taught in cater for high income families, there are always a few students who have fewer opportunities in life: the ones who have no books at home; no access to a library; no technology or wifi; no time for clubs; no money for travel...  If I can provide a experience for these children that they would not otherwise have had, then I have made a difference. Their genuine smiles, as they choose books in the library or get a robot to work, make my day, and my career. 

These students don't really understand the value of  new opportunities that others take for granted. They simply appreciate being able to do something that makes them feel happy, successful and empowered. I notice how our 'scholarship' kids love coming to the library and take full advantage of our opening hours and collection. They have become my assistants, knowing how to find books and use the online catalog. For them school is both fun and serious business. Their parents are even more appreciative for this opportunity, being very involved however they can.  

More than anything, students from less privileged homes are getting more than an education from me, they are learning to take charge of their learning and their future. I thank my Marshallese Rikatak students for the memories they have given me.  I will always remember the little Kindergarten students asking me each time they come to the library: "Can I go to the big kids side?"

A Day in the Life of a Military Contract Teacher

 

I know, there is no such thing as a Military Contract Teacher, because military schools are run by DoDEA. However, I live and work on Kwajalein, which is the only military base with a school run by the military contractor.  Not only is this school unique in the fact that it is on a remote island atoll n the middle of the Pacific, but it also is run by a company with no experience in running educational establishments.  Let me give you a peek into a day of a teacher in a school run like a construction project or a supermarket. 

We teachers are paid by the hour, which is meaningless. I arrive at work, where I am the media specialist, when I please. I might delay my commute if it is raining, or decide to walk the one block to school. I unlock the library and check the AC. If it is not working (not infrequent) I have to plan to relocate and replan my lessons for the day. Last Saturday, a school day here, the AC was working, and I readied my space for the day's Library and STEM classes. Then I check my emails and see that three teachers will be out today, with no coverage or substitutes available. 

One of the teachers out today has been absent for over two months, but each day there is need to find a sub as if she just called in sick this morning.  Another teacher is battling illness, unexpected to complete the year, yet no one has considered finding her help or back up. Other teachers are in a position where they are either stressed out, or feel guilty about taking time off.  So we start the school day without three teachers, seeing what events unfold.

A specialist teacher is roped in to teach grade 1. She arrived late in the school year, due to another hire balking at the prospect of not being assigned housing on island, and didn't want to live in Batchelor Quarters without a kitchen and eat in the chow hall.  Since arriving, this teacher has found herself subbing nonstop for absent teachers in the ES, leaving little time for her assigned role. Systems are 'flexible' in our small island school, so when someone is replacing the regular teacher they are faced with no lesson plans or up-to-date schedule... just do whatever it takes to get through the day. As a consequence, students show up at the library at unscheduled times and without much warning. 

Half way through the day, the Kindergarten sub must of bailed, because the little tots showed up at my door looking like sheep without a shepherd. I lined them up and marched them back to their homeroom, hearing their complaints all the way. Half way there, some lively students decided to barricade the door, shutting their classmates outside. It took several administrators to unblock the door, but by then the students were trying to pull the fire alarm in the hall. After some stern words, I finally succeeded in corralling the little ones on the Library carpet ready for a story. At that point the teacher assistant announced that she needed the restroom, and I realized that I would be going it alone.

These students are like those is every other school... they need stability. It is already hard to lose students and friends as military families take on new assignments around the world. Starting a school year without a full teaching staff is never easy.  But seeing your colleagues come and go due to inappropriate military contract guidelines is just heartbreaking.