Some New Stuff...

 SuperLily!!!

 Playing in the snow.

 At Princesses on Ice with Siobhan and Sarah.

 Telling ghost stories under a blanket with Siobhan and Sarah.

Ready to go outside!

Kitty Pics

Tribute to De'Bora

My friend and mentor, and Kannapolis City Schools' Teacher, De'Bora Parker, passed away this week after a brave and determined battle with cancer. While I will miss her terribly, I wanted to honor her memory with a message about her impact on my life.

When I first started teaching, I had no idea what I was doing. I was going to be a Marine Biologist. I'm supposed to be on a boat somewhere researching with the Cousteau family. But, kids are fun to work with and hey, summer's off don't sound like a bad plan. Such naiveté I had.

I started in education at the elementary school that I had attended as a kid, Aycock Elementary in Kannapolis. I had many good memories of attending Aycock, but was completely unaware as to how this new situation would ultimately shape me as an educator and as a human.

During my time at Aycock, I had the chance to work with De'Bora Parker in a second and third grade combination class. I was De'Bora's assistant and this was the first time I was ever in charge of (at least partially!) a whole group of students. I had no clue at the time that I was about to get a completely different education about being a teacher than what I was prepared for in college. Theory is one thing. Action is another. De'Bora was superior at her craft. She was an honest to goodness phenomenon in the classroom. 

She had her whole year mapped out from day one. She segued beautifully from whole group instruction to small group to individual students. She knew instinctively which kids needed more help and which were ready to move on. She was motivating and engaging and awesome. A hurricane of awesome.

Here I was supposed to be one of the teachers. Instead, I was still a student myself.

Over the course of my time with her, she taught me some of the fundamentals about education that I still hold on to today, and share often with the teachers I work with now:

• ·         If it's what's in the best interest of kids, then it's the right thing to do.
• ·         If it's worth doing, then it's worth doing well.
• ·         Sometimes, you just need to "drop everything and read" to the kids. (DEAR!)
• ·         The questions matter more than the answers.
• ·         The Macarena makes everyone smile.
• ·         Kids might take different times and different routes to get there, but they must get there.
• ·         Teamwork is essential.
• ·         Getting personal gets results.

I loved my time with her and I think about it often--the friendships it brought, the learning that took place, the seeds of incredible she planted in me and those wonderful kids we had that year.  They've all gone on to do spectacular things. (Thanks, Facebook, for keeping us connected!)

I want to take this time to thank her publicly. Everyone that knew her knew that she was a powerhouse. She was a driving force who shaped countless Kannapolis citizens. She has left a legacy of incredible in Kannapolis, an indelible mark on hundreds of kids over the years. And several lucky adults.

I am who I am because she was who she was. A teacher. An incredible, wonderful, awesome, unforgettable, amazing, and phenomenal teacher. I am honored that I had the opportunity to be one of her many students, her apprentice, her pal. I will miss her terribly and so will everyone whose life she touched.  

Godspeed, De'Bora!

Mike Fisher

Buffalo, NY

"Out of memory and time--

Don't say: We have come now to the end.

White shores are calling.

You and I will meet again." ~Annie Lennox, "Into the West"