Tag Archives: Bartlett Learning Center

Dancing Dollars & a sweet note from my class

Memories, teaching, , , ,

I thought I had written a post about my students as Dancing Dollars a while back but I cannot find it if I did; so here’s the back story to a sweet note I found and want to share.

My first teaching job was at Bartlett Learning Center (Now Clare Woods Academy) where I taught students with developmental disabilities. Every year the school put on a musical. The first year I taught there the students put on Alice in Wonderland. The second year it was Robin Hood.

The music teacher wanted to include all students, but there were never enough roles in the play so she had to be creative. The year we put on Robin Hood there was a commercial for WMAQ Radio featuring dollars as a chorus line. Here’s the commercial.

The music teacher decided that my students would be dancing dollars that were a result of someone dreaming about money. (I don’t remember the rest of the play, but I do remember my students’ performance). I was no good at choreographing so a friend helped me out. I think my students stole the show. Another friend silk screened the dollar image on the felt. I think I sewed the costumes at the shoulders and waist. Or perhaps my mom did.

I just came across a thank you note from my students.

First Teaching Job: Bartlett Learning Center

Work,

After graduating from NIU with a bachelors degree in Elementary (K-8) and Special (K-12) Education I applied for a job in Elgin Public Schools (U46) and was told to go elsewhere first for experience and then apply back to U46. So I just kept working at the restaurant instead.

My cousin knew someone who worked at a private school that needed a long-term substitute teacher, so I applied and was hired by Bartlett Learning Center in Bartlett, Illinois to substitute for a middle grade class of students with special needs for a few months while the teacher recovered from breast cancer surgery.

I don’t remember much of the teaching during those two months but I do vividly remember taking the bus to the train station, riding to Bartlett, then walking the short distance from the train station to the school. I’d pretend I was a Victorian era governess arriving at my employer’s residence each morning, mostly because the train station and nearby general store (where I’d buy a green river in the afternoons while I waited for my train) was that old.

I also remember learning how to write an IEP.

I remember it more clearly after Sr. Jane came back — I was kept on as her assistant, and eventually was given my own classroom.

Each year in the spring the school put on a musical to raise funds. They were a lot of fun and the kids really seemed to enjoy them. They were also very well-done.

The school was run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, third order of St. Francis and for a while three of them were my best friends: Jane, Barbara and Margaret.

Here is a brochure that tells a little about the school. It is now called Clare Woods Academy and has moved to Woodstock, Illinois.

I taught the boy on the right in the back and the boy in the very front.
The teacher in the middle is Sr. Margaret, one of my good friends during and after my two years there
The woman in the right center photo and I were friends. The girl at the bottom right was named Susan and in my class the second year I taught there. The boy in the second photo on the left was named Matt and also in my class the second year I taught at BLC

Remembering BLC and Sister Margaret

Death, Memories, , , ,

It was September 1979 and I  was fresh out of college with no employment other than my job at an all-night “pancake house” as a waitress. Someone who knew someone who knew I was looking for a teaching position told someone at Bartlett Learning Center (now Clare Woods Academy) about me. They called, I interviewed and was hired as a long-term substitute teacher at the school for learning disabled and developmentally disabled youth. The school was housed on the main floor of a Catholic convent run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis.

At that point in my life I did not have a car so I took a bus to the train station, rode the train the few stops from Elgin to Bartlett, then walked to the school. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked for me.

December of that year I moved to my own apartment. Around that same time, Sister Jane, the teacher for whom I was substituting returned to the school. I was kept on because she needed assistance after surgery. She lived in Elgin and my apartment was on the way to the school so she picked me up each morning and dropped me off each afternoon. Later, for some reason, two other sisters, Barbara and Margaret, joined the carpool (although they lived on the east side of Elgin and my apartment was not on the way to Bartlett) and for several months the four of us rode to and from school together each day. Suddenly my closest friends were nuns! I worked with them, commuted with them and even socialized with them.

After my parents bought a new car and gave me their old Buick LeSabre and I no longer needed to commute with the sisters we remained friends. In fact one of the other teachers at the school told me she didn’t trust me because I was friends with the sisters (one of whom was the head sister at the time).

Sisters Barbara and Margaret shared an apartment on the east side of Elgin. Sister Jane lived alone. Sister Jane was from a state farther west — Nebraska? One of the Dakotas? I don’t remember where Sister Barbara was from — maybe near Elgin? Sister Margaret was from Elgin, though. I knew that because one day I saw Sister Margaret’s photo among the photos of my mother’s classmates in her high school yearbook. I never told anyone but Sister Margaret that I saw the photo because because she was very secretive about her age.

Sister Margaret taught the younger students when I was at Bartlett Learning Center. She was so patient with them and they loved her. She was funny and kind and caring. I can actually still hear her voice in my head. She had brown short curly hair, twinkly eyes and a ready smile. In fact, the only time I saw her even slightly upset was when I told her that I saw her photograph in my mother’s yearbook.

When I read on Facebook that Sister Margaret died yesterday it brought back a flood of memories about my first two years as a teacher. About how I learned  so much about teaching from all the sisters. Sister Jane taught me classroom management skills, Sister Barbara taught me organizational skills and Sister Margaret probably taught me the most important lessons. She taught, by example how to be kind and patient and caring even when I wanted to scream at the students.

After I moved on from Bartlett Learning Center I kept in touch with the sisters for many years. After a while I lost touch with them but a mutual friend occasionally lets me know some information about these wonderful women.

These past 12 months have been a year of loss for me in so many ways. While I’d not talked to Sister Margaret for years, the world is that much worse because she is no longer in it. But she’s sitting at that table in the cafe in my mind’s picture of Heaven.