How Ed Lee learned to be a good human being after 30 years in USD 437

To hear Ed Lee tell it, coming to Kansas was almost entirely by accident.

Lee, a South Dakota native, was intent on getting out of the state as a teen, so he drove his car south until he ran out of gas somewhere near Emporia.

That’s the simple version. His more nuanced version of the story explains that his dad was a White City, Kansas, native and attended Emporia State University, so it only made sense to follow in those footsteps once it came time to get his teaching degree.

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But it’s stories like that that Lee has relied on 30 years of teaching at Washburn Rural, and they’re stories the veteran science educator will take with him as he prepares to retire from teaching at the end of the school year.

“(Teaching) taught me how to be a good human being,” Lee said. “It taught me how to adapt, and work with anyone who walked in my room. Every student was different, and each had unique styles, strengths, weaknesses and abilities.

“It was about learning how to accept everyone and their abilities, and knowing how to avoid frustration when you teach something and they don’t get it out of the gate,” he said. “It’s not that you did anything wrong, but it might just be about the approach and lining it up with how they process things.”

For Ed Lee, teaching was about learning, too

Lee’s first year as a teacher — the 1992-93 school year at Washburn Rural Middle School  — was, by his account, about the most horrible first year you could have.

“I made every beginning-year teacher mistake,” Lee said. “It was nothing serious, but it was the kind of stuff a veteran teacher would know not to do to save headaches.”

Throughout his career, though, Lee said he has been blessed to work with some of the most incredible co-workers, and in that first year, he had a veteran teacher who took him under his wing.

He learned that there’s a reason for many of the cliches and unwritten rules in teaching.

“They say don’t smile until Christmas,” Lee said. “Keep things strict. Stay on the tried and true until you have experience under your belt. … It’s always easier to loosen the reins than to tighten them.”

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After teaching at the middle school for a year, Lee took a year off to focus on getting his master’s degree. But even after reaching that milestone, he returned to Washburn Rural, where he taught and supported special education classrooms for a few years before becoming a physical science and chemistry teacher at the high school.

He also coached middle school track and wrestling for a while, before moving to the high school and coaching wrestling and bowling for a few years. That included the first year of the bowling program’s unified bowling program, which pairs together students with and without disabilities to compete.

In learning to 'be kind," Ed Lee has been an advocate for all Washburn Rural students

Over the years, Lee’s developed a reputation as a stern, but fair and caring, teacher, especially once he develops that type of rapport with students.

It’s part of a goal to always improve, and one he shares freely with his students, so that they can help keep him accountable to always becoming a better teacher.

“There’s nobody who is so good at classroom management that they can’t improve,” Lee said.

Especially with a subject that can be challenging to many students, Lee said he's often relied on anecdotes and stories to make chemistry relatable to students. He explains the concept of temperature's effect on a gas' volume by talking about his experiences with flat tires in frigid South Dakota, and he introduces students to stoichiometry by explaining that it's the same type of math used by workers at the Mars factory in the process of following the recipes to create candy.

Mike Steinert, a fellow science teacher who has known Lee for the past two decades, said Lee has been the type of teacher who goes out of his way to make sure every student gets the education they seek.

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“He’s been an advocate for his students, including those who struggle in class and for individuals with special needs,” Steinert said. “He’s a guy I admire in his versatility and willingness to do whatever is needed to get the job done for his students, our science department and the school.”

As he gets ready to retire from Washburn Rural High School, Lee said he’s keeping his options open, especially since he’s only 55. He does look forward to spending more time with his grandkids.

Above all, though, he leaves teaching as a better human being.

“I learned to be kind,” Lee said. “Everyone has their own battles and abilities and such. We’re all on the same rock, trying to do the same things, so we can help each other out instead of tearing each other apart.”

Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at ‪785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Washburn Rural's Ed Lee retires after 30 years in USD 437