“You’re teachers pet. You’re teachers pet!” I can remember that was a common accusation that was hurled at I and my fellow classmates from time to time in elementary school those many years ago. Most students probably feared being categorized as a teacher’s pet. Such a nametag was probably one of the first examples of negative peer pressure to exist in our educational system. Nobody wanted to be considered a ‘teacher’s pet’. Nobody but me, that is!

I am a people pleaser so it was very natural for me to want to please my teachers. So that’s exactly what I did and I will have to admit that over the years there were a few teacher’s that I think would have listed me as their pet. Peer pressure be darned! I enjoyed every minute of it. 🙂

Then I became a school teacher and over the years I’ve had a few ‘teacher pets’ of my own. Hopefully it wasn’t too obvious because I wanted to treat all my young learners equally but some were easier to deal with than others.

Actually teachers not only have to deal with ‘teacher’s pets’ as they educate. Every class has it’s own personality. Some classes were very enjoyable to teach while others were not so much. So as I look back on my forty-two year teaching career I had a few classes that I considered my ‘class pets’.

This past week on Facebook I saw a variety of posts announcing the 30th class reunion of the class of 1988 from Herman High School. The posts included pictures of past students that looked very much like they did when they graduated and then there were students that I couldn’t recognize at all. In fact I’m thinking someone was sitting in for them. 🙂

I began driving to Herman over my lunch hour in 1980 and taught biology and life science the last half of each day. I did this for eleven years. The class of 88′ would have been my first or second life science class at Herman and I’m not ashamed to say I loved them. They were my most favorite ‘teacher’s pet life science class’ of my forty-two year teaching career!

Now don’t get upset if you were in another life science class in Wheaton or Herman because I don’t mean to insult you. I had many life science classes that I really enjoyed and I had many individual students that I loved and were inspired by! But the Herman class of 1988 were a teacher’s dream class.

They loved to learn. They loved to laugh and they always showed me great respect. I felt like we were a big family.

I would arrive at the school over their noon hour so very often a half dozen 7th grade boys would welcome me in the parking lot. They were excited to see what I had brought over to be used as learning models in the class for that day. I drove a little bright yellow pickup so I was easy to spot as I entered the parking lot.

That fall I was trapping mink, muskrat and raccoons and would check the traps before school every morning. One particular morning one of my traps was missing and I did not have time to look for it. As I prepared to drive to Herman that noon I decided to make a quick two mile drive to the trapping sight and look a little further down the river bank for the trapped animal.

As I rounded a bend on the river bank I came upon my trap with a big raccoon snarling at me. Luckily I had brought my club and the animal was quickly sent to raccoon heaven.

What excitement I was met with in the Herman High School parking lot that noon when the seventh grade boys saw the bloodied raccoon in the back of my blood spattered yellow pickup bed. Nothing excites a thirteen year old boy more then blood and guts so that was a special day for them I’m sure. 🙂 I bet they all remember that event to this day.

As the school year was nearing an end some of the students undertook a task that no other life science class has ever done. They decided  to prepare a ‘time capsule’ to remember their seventh grade life science experiences.

Someone found a container and the students placed various objects in the time capsule to represent their year of life science. I never interfered or questioned what was being put in the time capsule. To this day I don’t know what the contents were. But come to think of it we were short a formaldehyde soaked earthworm and frog that spring during inventory time! 🙂

The time capsule was placed lovingly on the back shelf in the life science room and left for posterity. Or until some future life science teacher was cleaning house and coming across the box murmured, “This gets chucked. I wonder what ever this box represented?”

Years later I was visiting with one of those now grown seventh graders and he shared that on their 5th year high school class reunion they went into the science room, ten years after the time capsule had been placed there, and low and behold the capsule was still there!

Now that speaks well for the importance and meaningfulness of the capsule or it could also shed some light on the cleaning habits of past life science teachers. 🙂

I’m happy I was able to view the reunion celebration of the class of 1988 on Facebook. It gave me the opportunity to reminisce and remind me of all the great students I’ve had the opportunity to get to know and work with over my teaching years. I hope I was able to make good memories for you too. 🙂

Until next time.