Mrs. Jeppson, I Really Did Learn Something in Fourth Grade

I took my turn at my daughters' school when they were younger. I had lunch (another story to be told) with my second grader and taught a couple of class periods on the direct writing assessment to my fourth grader's class. Being in her class and watching the wiggles, the sighs, the teasing, the winking at each other, and listening to their writings about being nine years old conjured up my own fourth grade experience and transported me back.

Fourth grade year was perhaps my most favorite grade. I attended Menan Elementary, an ancient, black rock building, built around the turn of the century and surrounded by giant cottonwood trees. Downstairs was a cafeteria where we prayed (yes, we actually prayed) before we ate lunch and ran black erasers chuck full of chalk through a cleaning machine. Our room on the first floor had monstrous windows facing north and east. Behind the front wall was a small cloak room where we hung our coats on our own hooks. We sat on the narrow benches to take off our snow boots, snow still attached.

In the winter, we watched snow flakes quietly pile up on the ground outside. Springtime brought different kinds of birds to the cottonwoods until the recess bell rang. Then we leaped from our desks and rushed out to the huge playing area.

Mrs. Jeppson, my fourth grade teacher, was my most favorite teacher. I can remember where almost everybody sat, what books our teacher read to us, what kids were sick that year, and the crazy things some classmates did. One young man actually chased our teacher around the room with an eraser.

It seemed like we majored in multiplication drills that year. While other fourth grade classes were "drilling," we were playing games with multiplication tables. We sat as teams in rows and flipped up our thumbs if we knew the answer. Denece M. and I were best in our class. We memorized poems and recited them before the class. Mine was "Somebody's Mother." Others memorized Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith."

Mrs. Jeppson read us Where the Red Fern Grows. The last couple of chapters were pretty tough on little boys trying to become men. The only way I could keep from crying was to let out a "meow" at the end of the book. When I did, the biggest kid in class burst out crying. Fortunately, we then could focus our attention on him and forget about our own tears, welling up inside our eyes and the knot stuck in our throats. Thank goodness for comic relief.

But I wanted to feel that emotion so I checked out the book later. After concealing it, I sneaked out to the haystack, sat on a bale of hale, and imagined myself wandering the woods with Old Dan and Little Ann. I didn't want anyone to know that I was going to shed a ton of tears. Only now can I shyly admit that I cried when Old Dan and Little Ann died.

Probably one of the highlights of my fourth grade was studying other countries. My teacher invited my father who had spent time in Japan after the war to come and talk to us about his experiences. He came and visited with us about Japan, its customs, and the Japanese's feelings towards Americans. He even brought along his "geisha girl." She was absolutely stunning all dolled up in her brightly colored kimono and Japanese make-up. Not until I looked closely did I discovered she was my mother. I felt quite proud my parents would take the time and come to the class.

We learned about other things, mostly from other students in class. Denece taught us the proper way to eat soup, spooning it away from us. A Hispanic girl taught us about Spanish customs. After she left during the school year, she still sent letters to us, describing her new surroundings and school, and Mrs. Jeppson would read them to the class. I even had a crush on Susan, the most beautiful girl in class--or so I thought from 4th grader's perspective. We learned about life that year and how it connected to the real world.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Jeppson has long since passed. But when I contemplate her influence on us and how she propelled us to think beyond the bounds of the classroom, it becomes intoxicating to step inside another classroom and drink of the students' enthusiasm.

Thank you, Mrs. Jeppson, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Poole, Mrs. Parks, Mrs. Eames, Mr. Baldwin, Mrs. Frew, and all the rest of teachers. I really did learn something from being in your classrooms.

Lifelong Learning

“Yes, I’m done with school,” said a young bridegroom to me when I asked him about his educational status and future.

My response was spontaneous and swift: “Well, now the education really begins because learning is a lifelong process.”

I’m sure he wasn’t ready for me to say that. He was marrying a beautiful young woman who was finishing her baccalaureate degree, had a pretty good job as a chef, and figured his life couldn’t get any better. But I had to plant the seed because metaphorically I am an educational farmer and entrepreneur, one who sees the wide open stretches of fertile minds of people, young and old, employed and unemployed and figures everyone should be doing something to enhance his or her capacity to learn.

As I was driving home after the wedding, I couldn’t help but think about the 81-year-old GED graduate who haltingly crawled out of her wheelchair, grabbed her walker, and shuffled cautiously across the stage at a Lewis-Clark State College General Educational Development (GED) graduation to receive her GED certificate. Tears swelled up in my eyes as I watched her walk back to her wheelchair and sit back down. The crowd gave her a standing ovation.

I also thought about the 78-year-old GED graduate at Eastern Idaho Technical College (EITC) some years ago who said, “I am getting my GED because I know I will be a good example to my grandchildren.” Donned in traditional cap and gown, she, too, received a standing ovation as she walked across the stage and waved to her family.

Often, I also think of the 30 or so “more mature adults” who all trundled to Lewiston once during the month of June to participate in an Elderhostel activity. These adults came from across the country and are all over 50, many of them in their 60s, and will participate in a week-long course that will introduced them to Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery. Many of the these Elderhostelers have been to one or more Elderhostel activities around the United States during the past year. Their education might have ended several decades ago, but their learning has never stopped. Instead, they seek opportunities to learn because, as one of them commented, “I love to learn.”

At the opening session when I heard this phrase at their opening dinner, I marveled at it, yet simultaneously wondered how we could instill this progressive, albeit simple, philosophy in young people in grade school or junior or senior high school. These young people’s repetitious phrase is diametrically opposed to the senior citizens’: “I can’t wait to get out of school. I’m so burned out.”


When I hear this phrase, I want to literally scream: “Don’t say that! Don’t quit the process now! Your foundation has already been laid. Courage, and on to the victory.” After I calm down, I find solace in the fact that they will go on. Many of them just need to experience the jolt of menial labor or no job at all to open their eyes to learning and the prospects of an enhanced life.

In speeches, I often used the Jaime Escalante’s phrase, “Free, free, free, knowledge; bring you own containers.” Life is all about that phrase. Knowledge oozes out of every corner and crack. Often it just seeps by us or hangs from luscious baskets within our reach, but often we do not take advantage of the proliferation of knowledge. Or we fail to pack around our own containers, our buckets. Or worse, just the bottoms of our buckets are covered, and we say “I’ve got all the knowledge I want.”

Sometimes our buckets are like the old wire baskets I used to pick potatoes (a.k.a. “spuds”) in Eastern Idaho. They did not fill up by themselves. In order to pick a sack full of hardy Russets, my partner—most of the time my brother—and I had to bend over our baskets and reach for the potatoes. After dumping our full baskets in the gunny sack, we set the sack in the furrow between us and began again. Then, the truck would come by and take the sack to the spud cellar where they stored them until they were ready to sell.

Our gathering of knowledge parallels spud picking. It takes a bit of effort to fill our buckets. We may have to bend our backs, stretch our minds, work midst wind and snow storms and tauntings of others, and maybe even make a few sacrifices. But in the end, it’s all worth it. Like spuds in the cellar, knowledge stores easily in our minds until we need to use it. But we also need to couple it with everyday experiences so we can make the appropriate connections.

Learning is an investment, one that yields high benefits and interest. Because of the many changes in the world and the workplace, you may need to withdraw these resources at any given time. Invest now and often and keep your bank account growing.