Judy Gran fails to quit teaching for a third time

Jun. 6—"God sends children into the world perfect, as he always has," Judy Gran told me. "It's what we do to them after they're here that changes children — or what we don't do, as the case may be."

Gran just finished her 20th and final year as a reading tutor at Warder Park Wayne Elementary School.

Those years were tacked on to a teaching career of more than 35 years, much of it spent at the successor of the Warder Park School she attended as a child.

Now 79, Gran decided in the early 1940s what she would do with her life, inspired by the sweetness of her then third grade teacher, Olive Wilson.

Her own career began in 1961, four years after she graduated with the first class of North High School and with a degree from Wittenberg University.

Her years at Springfield's Elmwood elementary came "before they had specialists to coming in to do music and art and gym," she said. "We did it all. You'd get the teacher beside you to watch the kids so you could use the potty."

On the other hand, she said, "We did have an hour for lunch, so we'd walk up to Top Hat and eat."

Married three years later, she went to teach at Bowling Green, Ohio, where her husband, fresh out of the service, was going to college.

Mrs. Gran still seems pleased that the newspaper account of their wedding license listed her as a teacher and him as a ... student.

Returning to Springfield, she taught for a year at Boone Station Elementary, then decided to leave the classroom when the Grans had their first child.

"I tried, but I'm a teacher at heart. So, I found a good babysitter and took a position funded by Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

A part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty," the act provided school districts with high percentages of low income families with additional money.

"I didn't go back to regular classroom teaching," Gran said. "I got a degree in reading and fell in love with that."

"To me, reading and language arts are your most important feature of education. Because if you can't read, you're not going to be able to do math; you aren't going to enjoy social studies; and you're not going to enjoy science because you can't understand it."

Through reading, she added, children have access to other worlds through books. "They can get lost and put themselves in so many places (and) do so many things a lot of these little souls never get to do."

Because she was working with children struggling with reading, "often times I'd get discipline problems," she said.

"I always used the story: If you went bowling and every time you threw a gutter ball, would you want to go bowling again?"

Reading was that way for her students.

"No matter how hard they seem to try, when they start out they can't get it. So, they think something's wrong with them and they do naughty things to get attention."

"Those kids often can't learn in a larger group; if you get them in smaller group, they can learn."

They also tend to be easily distracted, and a calmer environment can help them focus. Discipline was required, she said, but discipline provided hand-in-hand with love.

"I always told my (first through third graders) 'If you feel you need a hug, you can come up to me. I won't stop teaching.' Many kids don't have opportunities to get the hugs and personal contact that you need."

She told frustrated and angry students "there's nothing wrong with being angry and taught a rhyme of the sort heard these days on the children's show Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood: Close your eyes, count to 10; don't say a word or move a hand.

Gran worries that teachers can no longer discipline children in a helpful way. She's not arguing for a a return to corporal punishment, only the exercise of power needed to teach children to control their behavior in a way that they will need to as they grow older.

And in a spirit of encouragement.

"Whenever they do anything correct, I celebrate it, and I give treats to kids when they follow instructions. They'll work hard for you if they think you really care, I'm convinced. I try to show them I really care."

"Most of them respond," she said, "not all."

Discipline is not her only concern.

"I think the state department (of education) has been taken over by business people rather than educators. And I don't think those people understand children."

"We are pushing kids to be too old too fast. We want them to be mini adults," overlooking crucial developmental issues.

"Everybody's brain doesn't form just because they're 5 years old," she said. "Every child is not ready for the kind of school work they're asked to do. We aren't giving them enough time to form the foundation of those things. Without that foundation, it's like a house, they will crumble."

What she sees as a myopic focus on testing also threatens to crowd out the kind of classroom housekeeping activities she planned into a day that served a dual purpose: Getting children out of their seats and teaching them the social skills of cooperation, responsibility and respect.

She also sees a higher incidence of speech problems now as the consequence of parents and children not spending enough time talking with one another, whether because of digital devices or family schedules.

Family realities are also important to consider, she said.

In one-parent families, "the parent that's working is worn out. They're trying to take care of the physical needs of their children and the emotional needs, and they're just worn out."

As a result, many are "not getting discipline at home and (teachers) aren't giving consequences for poor behavior because we can't. So how are these kids going to grow up and know right from wrong?"

This depth of concern for children led Gran to fail in her second attempt to leave teaching 20 years ago.

"I lasted the first year until April, and they were hunting for people to tutor for the state tests."

Soon, she was tutoring again.

Free of meetings, recess duty, and irate parents; doling out stars instead of grades; working with groups of four children who were making faster progress — all allowed her to do "all the things (I) wanted to do before, but couldn't."

The result was a more concentrated dose of the true joy of teaching.

"You see them blossom, you see them come alive. There's a look in their eyes when they can do something."

Next year, she'll be enjoying that look in the eyes of students in the classroom in which her daughter teaches, having failed to successfully leave teaching for a third time.