Greek Square
This block is sometimes known as the Churn Dash or Greek Cross. It is a commonly used nine patch pattern that many quilters will recognize. Playing with the color layout will change the impact of the pattern greatly.
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Malee Burton
Deaf Education Teacher
Malee is a deaf education teacher in southern Ohio. In our interview we talk about how her passion in deaf education started, her unique work flow as a teacher, and her family connection to fabrication-based community.
I'm going to go ahead and start recording if you can just start off by telling me your name and why you think you were asked to participate in this project.
My name is Malee Burton and I think that I was asked to participate in this project because I can share a lot of fun and interesting stories from my life growing up and as a teacher.
Yeah, exactly. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I grew up in Northeast Ohio in a very rural area. Most of the kids I went to school with lived on farms. My family's very close. We're still very close to this day with all my cousins and everyone. We had so much fun growing up together and we would get together like once a month as a huge family and celebrate everybody's birthdays in whichever month it was. We were always getting together all the time.
THROUGH THAT I BUILT REALLY GOOD FOUNDATIONS OF WHAT I FEEL LIKE FAMILY IS FOR ME- BEING AROUND OTHER PEOPLE. SO THE ISOLATION PART RIGHT NOW IS A LITTLE HARD. WE GOT TO SPEND A LOT OF TIME AT MY MATERNAL GRANDPARENTS HOUSE AND THAT'S WHERE I AND MY COUSINS LEARNED A LOT OF DIFFERENT SKILLS.
My grandmother was a huge crocheter so she taught us all to crochet. She was a quilter and a sewer and she made clothes and things like that. Although my sewing is very basic, I have other cousins and aunts that are really prolific sewers of garments and quilts and embroidery. She just instilled in us those homespun crafts. She taught us if a shirt got a hole in it, you didn't throw it away. You used it to make a quilt and then your quilt had memories in it. Growing up I had a great childhood.
WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT I WANTED TO DO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, I BECAME INTERESTED IN BEING A TEACHER. BUT I GET BORED VERY EASILY. I KNEW I DIDN'T WANT TO BE A MATH TEACHER WHO TAUGHT THE SAME THING, SIX BELLS A DAY. SO MY GUIDANCE COUNSELOR SET UP FOR ME TO GO AND VISIT DIFFERENT SPECIAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS WITHIN OUR DISTRICT. I WENT TO A COUPLE DIFFERENT ONES. THE FOURTH ONE I WENT TO WAS THE HEARING IMPAIRED UNIT. MY HOME SCHOOL HOUSED THE COUNTY PROGRAM SO KIDS FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTY CAME TO THAT SCHOOL. THE MINUTE I STEPPED IN THAT ROOM, I WAS HOOKED. I WAS FASCINATED. I LOVED IT AND I NEVER WAVERED.
What was it about him that you love so much?
I liked the challenge because even having five deaf kids in front of you, they all have unique communication needs. You always have to be changing and modifying and flipping back and forth between communication modes. No two kids are alike. There is no way that you could get bored teaching deaf kids. Some teachers will create a unit on poetry, right? And then every year they kind of tweak it for whatever kids are in their class. I developed a unit for poetry and that has 10 lessons and each of those lessons has like five variations because as I'm teaching it to five kids, I have to teach it five different ways. So it's very challenging and you have to really be a multitasker and be able to make decisions really quick. I was just fascinated with the communication and the facial expressions. So then the rest of the year I spent volunteering as much time as I could in that classroom.
Have you always been specialized with deaf kids?
Yes. My degree is in deaf education from Bowling Green State University here in Ohio. I really wanted middle school. That's really what I wanted to teach. They basically at that first job told me that, 'Oh no, you do too good with the little ones. We're going to leave you in the elementary'. So then I went out and found and middle school position and that's what brought me to Cincinnati. I interviewed with my current place of employment and I had a classroom for 18 years in West Claremont schools and then the last two years I've been full time itinerate again, which I've come to appreciate on this side of my career, having a lot more experience and being able to be more self sufficient. I'm back to just working with deaf kids. When I was at West Claremont I had my deaf students, but I also had other students on IEP that had different diagnoses like autism or emotional or just learning disability. So I wasn't strictly just with deaf kids. Now at the end of my career, I'm back with just deaf kids and I appreciate them and I love them so much more at this point of my career than I did when I tried to do itinerant earlier on. So that's probably way more than you wanted to know, isn't it?
No, that's great. So you've really always stayed in this area?
Yeah, I grew up right outside of Wooster, Ohio in Wayne County. I went to school in Bowling Green up near Toledo, went home and taught for two years. And then I moved to Wilmington and then from Wilmington I moved here into Cincinnati. So yeah, probably two thirds of my life I've been here in the Southern part of the state.
Have you ever thought about moving out of Ohio?
Actually my dream when I was in high school was that I wanted to move to Colorado. You have to remember this was the early eighties, so it was a long time ago. And at that time Colorado was really hitting a big growth boom with industry and populations. They were looking for teachers and I did research and I was like, 'this is a beautiful state. You've got the mountains, you've got the parks, you got all kinds of environments to do things and be active in'. My intent was I was going to graduate from college and I was going to move to Colorado. And then I got into college and I was offered a job right away. I'm like, 'well, I'll get some experience'. Then 30 years later I'm still getting my experience.
It's just how it went for you.
It is. Even though my brother had moved away and stuff. I was too close to my parents. I really didn't want to be that far away. Like three, three and a half hours is doable cause I can get home if I need to. But being states away, it just seemed to present more problems. The other thing is, I've got experience- I've got to do this again. Now I'm invested in my retirement here, I've got years of experience. Then you have to look when you move States- is there a reciprocation with your licensing or do you have to take more classes. I would've had to take more classes. Also I would lose all my years of service. Not that they would be held in Ohio, but that money wouldn't transfer in. So if I went to Colorado at that point, I'd have to teach the 30 years there. So that would really put me close to 40 years. I'm looking at retiring in a couple of years now. When you start getting older, you think about those things once you enter the workforce, like how long do I have to do this for.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT JUST BEING IN THE SPECIALIZATION YOU'RE IN TAKES MORE TIME THAN BEING A MATH TEACHER?
YES. THE AMOUNT OF PREP WORK THAT YOU DO FOR DEAF KIDS IS ALMOST QUADRUPLE. BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO DEVELOP THE LESSON AND YOU HAVE TO DEVELOP THE MATERIALS. AND THEN WHEN YOU DEVELOP THE MATERIALS, YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO MAKE A VOCABULARY LIST. YOU HAVE TO FIND THE SIGNS SO YOU CAN MAKE A SIGN LANGUAGE SHEET FOR YOUR VOCABULARY. YOU HAVE TO MAKE A PICTURES THAT WILL MATCH WITH THE VOCABULARY SO THEY HAVE A CONCRETE IDEA OF WHAT IT IS. LIKE IF I SIGN 'SKATEBOARD' THEY'LL JUST COPY ME. BUT DO THEY REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS? NO.
Then you have to show them a picture. 'This is a skateboard, this is the sign'. You have to really build concepts. And that even goes up through middle school and high school as you move through and you get into more focused content in biology and history and things like that. You have to have those concrete images for them to really understand. Otherwise it's just a bunch of signs you're saying with your hands and they're like, 'okay I'll repeat these'. I really think it takes a lot more because you have to really be really focused in your prep. But then you always have to make materials times how many kids are in that lesson. The last language arts class that I had, I had two deaf kids. One was in sixth grade. One was in eighth grade. But they were both reading on a first grade level. Even though they were both reading on a first grade level and I only had two kids, every lesson I did two separate sets of materials because of their ability to retain and build on background knowledge. It takes a lot more time. It's so funny because just yesterday on my spring, I actually went into my office to make an interactive notebook for one of my students. I worked on it ten to two yesterday. I ended up only putting part of the materials in because he would have been overwhelmed and completely shut down if I put everything in the binder. I realized it would take me way more hours than I wanted to put in yesterday just for one student. Just to make one set of materials for one student yesterday was four plus hours.
Wow, that's amazing.
Yeah. So then you times that by 20 something. Now not all kids required that much modification to their materials, but a lot do. Just depends on their level and where they're at.
Got you. Do you have any interesting stories that you could share with us about your experience teaching deaf children?
Oh, Lordy. Well, this is a funny story. I actually completed my degree in December. So I substitute taught from January till the end of the school year and then gained a full time position. So I was subbing. I used to get a lot of calls because I would go anywhere in the county to any of the school districts. It didn't matter to me. About the third or fourth time I got called to this one high school I was fresh out of college. I'm like 22, I'm working, trying to figure things out.
I GOT CALLED TO SUBSTITUTE IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASS. IT WAS SPANISH AND FRENCH. I TOOK GERMAN IN HIGH SCHOOL SO THAT DIDN'T HELP ME AT ALL. BUT THE TEACHER WAS REALLY COOL. SHE SAID SHE HAD SENT SOME VIDEOTAPES IN AND THE KIDS WERE SUPPOSED TO TAKE NOTES OR WHATEVER. THE FIRST CLASS WENT FINE. SECOND CLASS WENT FINE. THE THIRD CLASS, I STOOD UP, I INTRODUCED MYSELF. JUST TOLD THEM THAT THIS IS WHAT THEIR TEACHER SENT IN FOR THE DAY. THIS ONE KID WAS TURNED AROUND, FLAPPING HIS ARMS AROUND. I SAID, 'WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?' AND HE SAID, 'OH, WELL MY FRIEND IS DEAF SO I NEED TO TELL HIM WHAT YOU'RE SAYING'. I SAID, 'OH PERFECT. DID I NOT TELL YOU MY DEGREE IS IN DEAF EDUCATION?' I STARTED SIGNING EVERYTHING AND THEIR EYES GOT HUGE CAUSE THEY WERE TRYING TO PLAY A PRANK ON ME. I JUST SHUT OFF MY VOICE AND STARTED SIGNING. I SAID, 'DID YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?' HE WAS LIKE A DEER IN HEADLIGHTS.
That is the one occasion they couldn't get away with that.
They probably tried it on a lot of different people. But some of my fun memories were when I taught in Hillsborough and during any holiday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever, we would do different things. My apartment up there was actually the bottom level of an old farmhouse. I had this huge wraparound porch that went two thirds of the way around the house. So it was perfect. We started taking a Halloween trip up to my house. They would bring the kids up to my house and we would carve pumpkins and roast pumpkin seeds and we'd play all kinds of games and they'd run around in the fields. Those were some fun times because those were experiences those kids probably didn't have. Somebody was like, 'wait, you're giving them a knife?' And I'm like, 'yes, I'm giving them knives'. I mean, I had interpreters and other adults there. It wasn't like I'm just letting them go crazy with knives on each other. We had adult supervision and we got to do fun games and scavenger hunts and different things like that. Then at Christmas time they would come back to my house. The kitchen where I lived went the whole length on the backside of the house. I had all these counter spaces. So we would make Christmas cookies. They'd come to my house, we would do the recipes that included the math and the chemistry and all that. We'd mix up cookies and we bake the cookies, do all that stuff and everything. And then I would take them to school the next day and then we would decorate them. Those were gifts for their parents. They got to take home a big plate of cookies. Some of that was just so much fun because even though it was teaching, it was not structured a classroom. It was just more personable. I feel like in today in schools, I would not be able to take any of those children to my house to do any of those things just because of where we are today. I really treasure a lot of those early memories because I think that those were just really good times. When I first joined Facebook, years ago, a lot of my older kids found me on Facebook and they've friended me and stuff and they're like, 'do you remember that time we were at your house and we did this? Do you remember that time?' All these years later, those are things that they remember. So that means that I was doing something right. You don't always know the impact you have until way later. They were still remembering. My one student Mariah, she's like, 'Oh, I remember when we went to your house to bake cookies. I do that with my kids every year at Christmas now'. Just being able to give them things that they can then pass down and do with their kids- it's just amazing to me that those things continue.
It's a good tradition.
YEAH. THE EARLIER YEARS WERE MY FUNNER YEARS. IF I HAD TO CLASSIFY IT THAT WAY. JUST BECAUSE IT WAS EDUCATION BEFORE TESTING REQUIREMENTS AND GRADE CARDS. IT WAS WHEN EDUCATION WAS STILL EDUCATION. THOSE YEARS, THEY CAN'T TAKE AWAY FROM ME.
The kids still comment on it. Every once in a while they'll post a picture from one of the Christmas concert programs we had for the parents. They'll ask 'Hey, we're signing, do you remember what the song was?' That makes me feel good that we did something right.
That's beautiful. Going off of that, do you want to tell me a little bit about this personal tradition that you have of making things? I know you're not a quilter, but you do make other things.
True. I have some very basic sewing skills. I can hem some pants and I could make some straight curtains, that type of thing. I've done so many different crafts over the years. I used to cross stitch. That was never my favorite, but that was the 'in' craft and everybody in my family did it. Many years ago, because this child is now in her twenties and has children of her own, a friend of mine asked if I would tutor her child in maths. So she brought her one daughter over and I tutored her in math once a week for a couple of weeks until she would get a concept. To repay me, she bought me this 'learn how to knit' book. So then about three or four weeks later, we had two or three snow days in a row. I'm like, 'alright, I'm going to get this out and I'm going to see what this is about'. So I got the book out, I tried to read the directions and I was not getting this. 'What is going on? I don't understand'. I called her, I'm like, 'what did you get me into? I can't figure it out. I can't figure this out this cast on thing, I don't know what you're talking about'. And so she's like, 'all right, I'll come over'. So she came over and got me started on the traditional garter stitch scarf, where you knit both rows back and forth. So I knitted that and then I was like, 'well I guess this is okay'. And so then I bought some yarn and another friend of mine taught me how to make socks. They were the heavier slipper socks that have heavier yarn. I remember, it was my very first one and I knit the cuff and I knit the leg. We were at her house for a craft night and I'm like, 'okay, I just need to get to this next part because I don't understand this heel thing'. I didn't leave her house until like three o'clock in the morning because I wanted to learn how to do this heel so I could do that and then do the foot right. Because it was Sunday and I wanted something to work on. It just kinda grew from there. I took some classes, I learned some different techniques and then I started going to knitting groups. I started attending sock club and I started attending some other things that they did there. Actually that's where I met your mom when she started coming to sock club as well. It just kinda grew from there. I did socks and scarfs for a long time because that's what I felt comfortable with. And then I did some mittens here and there and then hats. And then I tried my first sweater which did not turn out well. Now I am to the point where I have knit sweaters and socks. It just really gives me pleasure to make things. Some things I keep, some things I give away.
My name is Malee Burton and I think that I was asked to participate in this project because I can share a lot of fun and interesting stories from my life growing up and as a teacher.
Yeah, exactly. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I grew up in Northeast Ohio in a very rural area. Most of the kids I went to school with lived on farms. My family's very close. We're still very close to this day with all my cousins and everyone. We had so much fun growing up together and we would get together like once a month as a huge family and celebrate everybody's birthdays in whichever month it was. We were always getting together all the time.
THROUGH THAT I BUILT REALLY GOOD FOUNDATIONS OF WHAT I FEEL LIKE FAMILY IS FOR ME- BEING AROUND OTHER PEOPLE. SO THE ISOLATION PART RIGHT NOW IS A LITTLE HARD. WE GOT TO SPEND A LOT OF TIME AT MY MATERNAL GRANDPARENTS HOUSE AND THAT'S WHERE I AND MY COUSINS LEARNED A LOT OF DIFFERENT SKILLS.
My grandmother was a huge crocheter so she taught us all to crochet. She was a quilter and a sewer and she made clothes and things like that. Although my sewing is very basic, I have other cousins and aunts that are really prolific sewers of garments and quilts and embroidery. She just instilled in us those homespun crafts. She taught us if a shirt got a hole in it, you didn't throw it away. You used it to make a quilt and then your quilt had memories in it. Growing up I had a great childhood.
WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT I WANTED TO DO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, I BECAME INTERESTED IN BEING A TEACHER. BUT I GET BORED VERY EASILY. I KNEW I DIDN'T WANT TO BE A MATH TEACHER WHO TAUGHT THE SAME THING, SIX BELLS A DAY. SO MY GUIDANCE COUNSELOR SET UP FOR ME TO GO AND VISIT DIFFERENT SPECIAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS WITHIN OUR DISTRICT. I WENT TO A COUPLE DIFFERENT ONES. THE FOURTH ONE I WENT TO WAS THE HEARING IMPAIRED UNIT. MY HOME SCHOOL HOUSED THE COUNTY PROGRAM SO KIDS FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTY CAME TO THAT SCHOOL. THE MINUTE I STEPPED IN THAT ROOM, I WAS HOOKED. I WAS FASCINATED. I LOVED IT AND I NEVER WAVERED.
What was it about him that you love so much?
I liked the challenge because even having five deaf kids in front of you, they all have unique communication needs. You always have to be changing and modifying and flipping back and forth between communication modes. No two kids are alike. There is no way that you could get bored teaching deaf kids. Some teachers will create a unit on poetry, right? And then every year they kind of tweak it for whatever kids are in their class. I developed a unit for poetry and that has 10 lessons and each of those lessons has like five variations because as I'm teaching it to five kids, I have to teach it five different ways. So it's very challenging and you have to really be a multitasker and be able to make decisions really quick. I was just fascinated with the communication and the facial expressions. So then the rest of the year I spent volunteering as much time as I could in that classroom.
Have you always been specialized with deaf kids?
Yes. My degree is in deaf education from Bowling Green State University here in Ohio. I really wanted middle school. That's really what I wanted to teach. They basically at that first job told me that, 'Oh no, you do too good with the little ones. We're going to leave you in the elementary'. So then I went out and found and middle school position and that's what brought me to Cincinnati. I interviewed with my current place of employment and I had a classroom for 18 years in West Claremont schools and then the last two years I've been full time itinerate again, which I've come to appreciate on this side of my career, having a lot more experience and being able to be more self sufficient. I'm back to just working with deaf kids. When I was at West Claremont I had my deaf students, but I also had other students on IEP that had different diagnoses like autism or emotional or just learning disability. So I wasn't strictly just with deaf kids. Now at the end of my career, I'm back with just deaf kids and I appreciate them and I love them so much more at this point of my career than I did when I tried to do itinerant earlier on. So that's probably way more than you wanted to know, isn't it?
No, that's great. So you've really always stayed in this area?
Yeah, I grew up right outside of Wooster, Ohio in Wayne County. I went to school in Bowling Green up near Toledo, went home and taught for two years. And then I moved to Wilmington and then from Wilmington I moved here into Cincinnati. So yeah, probably two thirds of my life I've been here in the Southern part of the state.
Have you ever thought about moving out of Ohio?
Actually my dream when I was in high school was that I wanted to move to Colorado. You have to remember this was the early eighties, so it was a long time ago. And at that time Colorado was really hitting a big growth boom with industry and populations. They were looking for teachers and I did research and I was like, 'this is a beautiful state. You've got the mountains, you've got the parks, you got all kinds of environments to do things and be active in'. My intent was I was going to graduate from college and I was going to move to Colorado. And then I got into college and I was offered a job right away. I'm like, 'well, I'll get some experience'. Then 30 years later I'm still getting my experience.
It's just how it went for you.
It is. Even though my brother had moved away and stuff. I was too close to my parents. I really didn't want to be that far away. Like three, three and a half hours is doable cause I can get home if I need to. But being states away, it just seemed to present more problems. The other thing is, I've got experience- I've got to do this again. Now I'm invested in my retirement here, I've got years of experience. Then you have to look when you move States- is there a reciprocation with your licensing or do you have to take more classes. I would've had to take more classes. Also I would lose all my years of service. Not that they would be held in Ohio, but that money wouldn't transfer in. So if I went to Colorado at that point, I'd have to teach the 30 years there. So that would really put me close to 40 years. I'm looking at retiring in a couple of years now. When you start getting older, you think about those things once you enter the workforce, like how long do I have to do this for.
WOULD YOU SAY THAT JUST BEING IN THE SPECIALIZATION YOU'RE IN TAKES MORE TIME THAN BEING A MATH TEACHER?
YES. THE AMOUNT OF PREP WORK THAT YOU DO FOR DEAF KIDS IS ALMOST QUADRUPLE. BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO DEVELOP THE LESSON AND YOU HAVE TO DEVELOP THE MATERIALS. AND THEN WHEN YOU DEVELOP THE MATERIALS, YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO MAKE A VOCABULARY LIST. YOU HAVE TO FIND THE SIGNS SO YOU CAN MAKE A SIGN LANGUAGE SHEET FOR YOUR VOCABULARY. YOU HAVE TO MAKE A PICTURES THAT WILL MATCH WITH THE VOCABULARY SO THEY HAVE A CONCRETE IDEA OF WHAT IT IS. LIKE IF I SIGN 'SKATEBOARD' THEY'LL JUST COPY ME. BUT DO THEY REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS? NO.
Then you have to show them a picture. 'This is a skateboard, this is the sign'. You have to really build concepts. And that even goes up through middle school and high school as you move through and you get into more focused content in biology and history and things like that. You have to have those concrete images for them to really understand. Otherwise it's just a bunch of signs you're saying with your hands and they're like, 'okay I'll repeat these'. I really think it takes a lot more because you have to really be really focused in your prep. But then you always have to make materials times how many kids are in that lesson. The last language arts class that I had, I had two deaf kids. One was in sixth grade. One was in eighth grade. But they were both reading on a first grade level. Even though they were both reading on a first grade level and I only had two kids, every lesson I did two separate sets of materials because of their ability to retain and build on background knowledge. It takes a lot more time. It's so funny because just yesterday on my spring, I actually went into my office to make an interactive notebook for one of my students. I worked on it ten to two yesterday. I ended up only putting part of the materials in because he would have been overwhelmed and completely shut down if I put everything in the binder. I realized it would take me way more hours than I wanted to put in yesterday just for one student. Just to make one set of materials for one student yesterday was four plus hours.
Wow, that's amazing.
Yeah. So then you times that by 20 something. Now not all kids required that much modification to their materials, but a lot do. Just depends on their level and where they're at.
Got you. Do you have any interesting stories that you could share with us about your experience teaching deaf children?
Oh, Lordy. Well, this is a funny story. I actually completed my degree in December. So I substitute taught from January till the end of the school year and then gained a full time position. So I was subbing. I used to get a lot of calls because I would go anywhere in the county to any of the school districts. It didn't matter to me. About the third or fourth time I got called to this one high school I was fresh out of college. I'm like 22, I'm working, trying to figure things out.
I GOT CALLED TO SUBSTITUTE IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASS. IT WAS SPANISH AND FRENCH. I TOOK GERMAN IN HIGH SCHOOL SO THAT DIDN'T HELP ME AT ALL. BUT THE TEACHER WAS REALLY COOL. SHE SAID SHE HAD SENT SOME VIDEOTAPES IN AND THE KIDS WERE SUPPOSED TO TAKE NOTES OR WHATEVER. THE FIRST CLASS WENT FINE. SECOND CLASS WENT FINE. THE THIRD CLASS, I STOOD UP, I INTRODUCED MYSELF. JUST TOLD THEM THAT THIS IS WHAT THEIR TEACHER SENT IN FOR THE DAY. THIS ONE KID WAS TURNED AROUND, FLAPPING HIS ARMS AROUND. I SAID, 'WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?' AND HE SAID, 'OH, WELL MY FRIEND IS DEAF SO I NEED TO TELL HIM WHAT YOU'RE SAYING'. I SAID, 'OH PERFECT. DID I NOT TELL YOU MY DEGREE IS IN DEAF EDUCATION?' I STARTED SIGNING EVERYTHING AND THEIR EYES GOT HUGE CAUSE THEY WERE TRYING TO PLAY A PRANK ON ME. I JUST SHUT OFF MY VOICE AND STARTED SIGNING. I SAID, 'DID YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?' HE WAS LIKE A DEER IN HEADLIGHTS.
That is the one occasion they couldn't get away with that.
They probably tried it on a lot of different people. But some of my fun memories were when I taught in Hillsborough and during any holiday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever, we would do different things. My apartment up there was actually the bottom level of an old farmhouse. I had this huge wraparound porch that went two thirds of the way around the house. So it was perfect. We started taking a Halloween trip up to my house. They would bring the kids up to my house and we would carve pumpkins and roast pumpkin seeds and we'd play all kinds of games and they'd run around in the fields. Those were some fun times because those were experiences those kids probably didn't have. Somebody was like, 'wait, you're giving them a knife?' And I'm like, 'yes, I'm giving them knives'. I mean, I had interpreters and other adults there. It wasn't like I'm just letting them go crazy with knives on each other. We had adult supervision and we got to do fun games and scavenger hunts and different things like that. Then at Christmas time they would come back to my house. The kitchen where I lived went the whole length on the backside of the house. I had all these counter spaces. So we would make Christmas cookies. They'd come to my house, we would do the recipes that included the math and the chemistry and all that. We'd mix up cookies and we bake the cookies, do all that stuff and everything. And then I would take them to school the next day and then we would decorate them. Those were gifts for their parents. They got to take home a big plate of cookies. Some of that was just so much fun because even though it was teaching, it was not structured a classroom. It was just more personable. I feel like in today in schools, I would not be able to take any of those children to my house to do any of those things just because of where we are today. I really treasure a lot of those early memories because I think that those were just really good times. When I first joined Facebook, years ago, a lot of my older kids found me on Facebook and they've friended me and stuff and they're like, 'do you remember that time we were at your house and we did this? Do you remember that time?' All these years later, those are things that they remember. So that means that I was doing something right. You don't always know the impact you have until way later. They were still remembering. My one student Mariah, she's like, 'Oh, I remember when we went to your house to bake cookies. I do that with my kids every year at Christmas now'. Just being able to give them things that they can then pass down and do with their kids- it's just amazing to me that those things continue.
It's a good tradition.
YEAH. THE EARLIER YEARS WERE MY FUNNER YEARS. IF I HAD TO CLASSIFY IT THAT WAY. JUST BECAUSE IT WAS EDUCATION BEFORE TESTING REQUIREMENTS AND GRADE CARDS. IT WAS WHEN EDUCATION WAS STILL EDUCATION. THOSE YEARS, THEY CAN'T TAKE AWAY FROM ME.
The kids still comment on it. Every once in a while they'll post a picture from one of the Christmas concert programs we had for the parents. They'll ask 'Hey, we're signing, do you remember what the song was?' That makes me feel good that we did something right.
That's beautiful. Going off of that, do you want to tell me a little bit about this personal tradition that you have of making things? I know you're not a quilter, but you do make other things.
True. I have some very basic sewing skills. I can hem some pants and I could make some straight curtains, that type of thing. I've done so many different crafts over the years. I used to cross stitch. That was never my favorite, but that was the 'in' craft and everybody in my family did it. Many years ago, because this child is now in her twenties and has children of her own, a friend of mine asked if I would tutor her child in maths. So she brought her one daughter over and I tutored her in math once a week for a couple of weeks until she would get a concept. To repay me, she bought me this 'learn how to knit' book. So then about three or four weeks later, we had two or three snow days in a row. I'm like, 'alright, I'm going to get this out and I'm going to see what this is about'. So I got the book out, I tried to read the directions and I was not getting this. 'What is going on? I don't understand'. I called her, I'm like, 'what did you get me into? I can't figure it out. I can't figure this out this cast on thing, I don't know what you're talking about'. And so she's like, 'all right, I'll come over'. So she came over and got me started on the traditional garter stitch scarf, where you knit both rows back and forth. So I knitted that and then I was like, 'well I guess this is okay'. And so then I bought some yarn and another friend of mine taught me how to make socks. They were the heavier slipper socks that have heavier yarn. I remember, it was my very first one and I knit the cuff and I knit the leg. We were at her house for a craft night and I'm like, 'okay, I just need to get to this next part because I don't understand this heel thing'. I didn't leave her house until like three o'clock in the morning because I wanted to learn how to do this heel so I could do that and then do the foot right. Because it was Sunday and I wanted something to work on. It just kinda grew from there. I took some classes, I learned some different techniques and then I started going to knitting groups. I started attending sock club and I started attending some other things that they did there. Actually that's where I met your mom when she started coming to sock club as well. It just kinda grew from there. I did socks and scarfs for a long time because that's what I felt comfortable with. And then I did some mittens here and there and then hats. And then I tried my first sweater which did not turn out well. Now I am to the point where I have knit sweaters and socks. It just really gives me pleasure to make things. Some things I keep, some things I give away.