Her Name Was Mrs. Fletcher
By: Megan Minutillo
Tags: Mindfulness, Covid 19, Teaching, Self-awareness, Life Lessons

Her Name Was Mrs. Fletcher

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Soon, I’ll conclude my time teaching a group of elementary school kids.

Ten little kids came into my care during these pandemic times. Ten pairs of eyes and ears and little hearts, looking to yours truly for what to do with math homework, and if how to operate a tablet, and attend a Zoom — and yes, teaching a six-year-old how to Zoom is as zany as you might imagine. Perhaps, even more so. But still, they stood in my classroom — ten little souls who want to know if the virus is “really scary” and why they have to eat their vegetables.

Ten little humans who declare that they’d be nice to people if they were president one day. Because more people need to be nice.

Ten little people who proudly tell me that they want to be a scientist and a rockstar and then a police officer. In that order.

Ten little hearts who pour love onto one another as easily ask they ask for a snack for the third time.

Soon, I will no longer teach them.

We will no longer learn about numbers, and letters, and stories that make them giggle. We will no longer run around outside at recess until our faces are red and our breath is heavy. We will no longer color pictures of our dreams and write cards to our loved ones.

Soon, they will move on — as it should be.

And yet, I can’t help but wonder if they’ll remember this time.

When they’re older, and driving, and making their own mark upon this world, will they remember their silly teacher with the crazy curly hair? The one who laughed with them, and sat with them, and listened to them?

When I was in third grade, there was a teacher called Mrs. Fletcher.

She wasn’t even my teacher, but she was the head of a Post Office Program that my elementary school did every year.

The details are a little fuzzy, but the program’s essence was thus: to teach students about the postal system and correspondence and practice our handwriting, we wrote letters to one another. Each classroom had an address of its own, and each letter or card that we sent had to be enclosed in an envelope that properly used the address.

I found it delightful.

There was something about receiving mail from a friend, or even one of my teachers, that made my little third-grade heart happy.

It was like a hug — but on paper. It’s probably the reason why I still love getting cards in the mail.

Recently, I drove by my elementary school — and I immediately thought of Mrs. Fletcher and her postal program, a memory that has stuck with me for over twenty years.

As people, it’s easy to get swept up in the routine of our day to day and think that our actions do not land, that they do not matter in the grand scheme of things. It’s easy to believe the lie that you live in a little bubble and that your actions do not affect others, especially people you will never meet. Spoiler alert — they do.

As teachers, it’s easy to think that our name will be forgotten, that students will leave, and the time we spent together will become a distant memory that blends in with the rest of life’s adventure.

But the truth of it is that you don’t know whose soul you will stick to — you don’t know who will carry your words or your light with them for ten, twenty, thirty years.

Her name was Mrs. Fletcher.

What was yours?