Mark Bennett: For a teacher, value of a thank-you might last for decades

May 11—I was six years old. After summer vacation and a couple months of first grade, I apparently longed for my younger days.

So I wrote a letter to my former kindergarten teacher at Greenwood Elementary School in Terre Haute.

It read: "Dear Mrs. Borruf (sic): I'm Mark Bennett. I miss you, but My first grade teacher's Name is Mrs. Edith Franks. I like her too. And I like you too. I would like for you to come and see me. We are Studying about living things. We got our first Word Cards last week. Love, Mark."

Other than my caring mom adding a few key details to the return address, I'd handwritten the letter myself (likely with one of those fat, round grade-school pencils) and affixed a 5-cent George Washington stamp to the envelope. It was postmarked Oct. 21, 1966.

Last week, a volunteer from the Vigo County Educational Heritage Association Museum on Lafayette Avenue emailed me, saying a retired teacher had dropped off numerous mementos from her career at Greenwood and Warren elementary schools, the Indiana State University Lab School and more. Then that volunteer, Sandy Billing, asked if I was a student in Pattie Boruff's kindergarten class at Greenwood in 1966.

Flabbergasted that anyone besides me and my mother would know that, I responded, "Well, yes."

It turned out that Mrs. Boruff, my kindergarten teacher, kept that letter for 57 years and it was among those items she'd dropped off at the museum. This week, I called Mrs. Boruff to ask her about it.

She quickly explained that she's "a collector" and likes to keep sentimental items. For example, she donated a trunk full of keepsakes from her 20 years of teaching at the ISU Lab School preschool to the university's archives a few years ago.

And, the assortment of treasures that Mrs. Boruff dropped off at the Educational Heritage Association Museum this month also included items from her years as a Garfield High School and Rankin Elementary student, and her late husband's days as a Collett Elementary pupil.

My letter was one of her many remembrances that made her smile.

"You just don't know how uplifting it is to pull out something and look at it and think, 'This is from a child 20 years ago,'" Mrs. Boruff said Wednesday.

Or 57 years ago.

Mrs. Boruff is now 91 and lives in Clay County. I had long forgotten about the letter until I saw it, thanks to Billing — a retired teacher herself — mailing it to me. In my defense, I was just six then and probably had a toothless smile and an obsession for chocolate milk and baseball cards; memory-making was beyond my comprehension at that stage in life. Yet, to the recipient, its smile-value was timeless and strong.

That's worth remembering on this second week of May — National Teacher Appreciation Week.

There are two million elementary school teachers in America, 641,000 middle school teachers and 992,000 senior high school teachers, according to MDR, the education division of data analytics firm Dun & Bradstreet. In total, more than 4 million teachers instruct students in grades K-through-12 at public and private schools, adult education classes and career and technical classes across the U.S.

That's a lot of potential thank-you letters.

Coincidentally, my first year of schooling came amid Mrs. Boruff's first years of teaching. She called herself a "late bloomer" in her profession, because Mrs. Boruff delayed starting college at Indiana State until the youngest of her three daughters was in first grade. She earned her degree and started teaching, at Greenwood for a few years, then Warren and finally the preschool program at Lab School.

Greenwood was located on West Voorhees Street. That two-story brick building, constructed in 1907 and 1908, still stands. It closed as a school in 1988 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places nine years later. In the mid-1960s, Mrs. Boruff taught youngsters bused in from the countryside — like me — and kids from the Greenwood neighborhood in morning and afternoon kindergarten classes. "I had the best of both worlds," she said.

"It was a good experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it," Mrs. Boruff said of her career. "And I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Teaching, she added, "is a wonderful profession."

The educational atmosphere continued in her life. She and her late husband, Cleb, were loyal fans of the ISU men's and women's basketball teams. He died in December at age 91. They'd been married 73 years. Two of their daughters became teachers, and the other entered yet another noble occupation — nursing. Two of Mrs. Boruff's grandchildren are teachers. "And they're excellent teachers," she said.

Some elements of the field have changed since Mrs. Boruff's teaching years. She cited staff dress codes.

"[Women] wore hose. You never wore a pair of pants or slacks," she recalled. "Men were dressed [professionally]. They never wore T-shirts."

She realizes, too, the changing roles of teachers and the added responsibilities and expectations of their jobs in the 21st century, and teacher shortages concern her. Indeed, 95% of Indiana school district superintendents reported a shortage of qualified teachers in a survey released early this year by Equitable Education Solutions, a private consulting firm.

She hopes young teachers can remain in the profession and experience an atmosphere of "let's get back to teaching" in their jobs.

Her advice to those new educators seems simple, yet profound — let a kid be a child and learn to like school and to be a good learner. I remember that happening in Mrs. Boruff's class. I recall trying to be on my best behavior to get chosen for the duty of retrieving milk cartons for our entire class from Greenwood's basement.

You stood a little taller in that moment, even at a height of three and a half feet.

"First, let them be children and learn to get along with each other," she said. "I think the world would be a better place if we all did."

Here's a thank-you to Mrs. Boruff and to every teacher who's done just that. Better yet, put that gratitude in a letter. The teacher might hang on to it a while.

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.