Everything's Better with Buddies

As you can probably gather, one of my favorite activities is getting the girls ready in the morning and dropping them off at school and daycare. The other day, Emilia decided that the time was right for her to walk from the car up to the school door for the last time. Tomorrow was going be one of those all important first steps. As we were approaching the path up to the school, one of her classmates Sam was walking up at the same time. Emilia offered him her other hand and still held on to mine as we continued up the sidewalk. It wasn't long before a minivan door opened behind us, and we heard a shout, "Emilia!" I could tell from the loosening of Emilia's hand that I was about to be replaced. She offered Madelyn her newly emptied hand, and the three of them made their way, hands linked, up to school.

Last fall, some of my students convinced me to start a facebook account. I was a little hesitant because I didn't want to have one more thing that I had to check and make sure I kept current. I don't keep it current, but it has allowed me to keep track of many of those guys I joined up with as together we sorted out some of those long walks of growing up. Now, we're husbands and fathers, teachers and doctors, pastors and businessmen, and we still share those challenges of growing up. I got messages from a couple of those guys from college the same day I was traded off for a couple of buddies on a walk into school and was reminded that it seems to make life seem easier when we can walk through it with someone.

I Miss Dr. McGuire

After my 1:30 class this afternoon, I saw Lyra, a junior English major I had in a freshman composition class, and Tim, one of the students I advise (an official sounding word for helping schedule classes and navigate the academic side of university life), sitting down at the end of the hall waiting for their next class to start.

#2 on my list of what I enjoy about the students being back - Getting to have all sorts of conversations

Anyway, Lyra said something to me and I walked down and had a seat with them. Tim and I are trying to work through a conflict in his schedule, so I mentioned the possibility of doing a study abroad program at someplace like Oxford and taking classes that could replace one of the classes that's a conflict right now. A couple other students were in the area and both piped in their opinions about studying abroad. Ashley and Joel, both seniors, have spent semesters abroad. Ashley was at Oxford for a semester last year and Joel spent a semester in Russia.

As we were talking, the conversation shifted to many different subjects, but the one that stuck with me was how we miss Dr. McGuire. Dr. McGuire retired at the end of last school year after, I believe, 30 years of teaching at Olivet. We shared favorite stories about her and her teaching, particularly her teaching of British Literature. Joel, Ashley, and Leigh talked about projects they did in her class and the unexpected reactions they got from her. We all remember reciting the Lord's Prayer in Old English at the beginning of class. I told them about The Festival of British Literature, a project we did in her class, that involved marching across campus in costume performing stories from Canterbury Tales, eating a British dinner, and then each person in the class performing another story after dinner. They talked about her bringing coooookies (always pronounced with an extra long o) and cucumber sandwiches. I shared about the songs we sang about Beowulf as she played along on her lap harp. These stories reminded me of what great teachers do...they figure out a way to connect with their students and create experiences that help them to better understand a particular subject area.

Dr. McGuire, from six of your former students, thanks for a job well done.