The Teaching Crown Goes to Pat Schmidt

 Pat Schmidt is the teacher who spent the most time in my children's life, and this is her last academic year.  She is going to do something else with the rest of her life, and at a time like this, it makes sense to reflect on just exactly how great she is.  So here goes.

In the spring of 1990  we were looking for educational alternatives for my second son--he was born a bit too late in the calendar year to start school the fall he turned five, but he definitely needed something more structured than the pre-school program that he was in.  At the same time my eldest son was struggling with school in a different way.  When the work the class was doing was too easy for him he either made trouble, or worse yet, zoned out.  When he was moved to the next classroom up, he was engaged and happy. 

So what to do--the traditional school system was potentially  recommending that my two sons, who are 26 months apart in age, be 4 years apart in school--it just made no sense at all.

That is when we discovered Pat Schmidt and the fabulous school that used to be Willowwind School.  It was a small school in a large house in downtown Iowa City.  There were three classrooms, 50 students, and multiple teachers all engaged in helping each student reach their full potential at their own pace.  Older students helping younger ones--the very best of home schooling combined with a broad educational program, and an appreciation for nature and ecology and peace and harmony.

Our four children spent their grammar school years in this wonderful setting and all was good in their world until the spring of 2005.  There was a horrible bitter break in the school, which was marked by rumor, innuendo, hysteria, and lying.  Very ugly, and the magnificent Pat left the soul crushing atmosphere that Willowwind became and started her own school.  Luckily, I had only one child left there, Ethan.  Sadly, he was my most educationally challenged child, my cancer survivor, who desperately needed the small classroom size and the attention of a teacher who really cared that he succeed.

Initially we stayed in the old school after Pat left with the new people, but we were very unhappy, and gradually Ethan became miserable--the small classroom size was not enough to balance the loss of the great teacher. A month into the ordeal I was at a meeting out-of-town, and while I was there I had dinner with a favorite colleague.  I told my tale of woe to her and she said, "So, you think Ethan does well with a gifted teacher and a small classroom size--you have a gifted teacher who started her own school with an even smaller number of students that he could attend.  I really don't understand what your problem is."  Suddenly, neither did I. 

I left the meeting early, flew home, and called a family meeting.  After a decade, we were considering leaving a school that we had been actively and happily involved with, and we wanted our children's input.  When we posed the possible solution--that Ethan go to Pat's new school--one of my children responded immediately.  He said "Willowwind is just a building.  It the people who are important, and Pat is the very best teacher any of us has ever had.  Of course Ethan should go to her school."  Out of the mouths of babes.  So true.  Willowwind was meaningless to us without Pat.  Why had it taken so long to see that?

Well, once the truth had been revealed, we were once again on the right course, and for the next four years Ethan attended Pat's new school and he thrived, despite having to have neurosurgery (again).  She prepared him to enter high school on every level--emotionally, educationally, and spiritually.  He left a school with fewer than 20 children to attend a school with 100's of students confident that he would succeed, and he did.  He graduates with honors this week and he will attend the University of Iowa this fall.  There are many people who share in his success, but outside his family, no one played a bigger role than Pat.  Please give her a big round of applause for a career of gifted and memorable teaching.