In Search of Human Origins: How A Middle School Librarian Made Me Who I Am Today

If I were judged by "the person I was as a kid", I would likely not be a teacher... And had an adolescent version of me gazed into a crystal ball, she would be surprised to find her calling as an educator.

"A Tale of Two Jennys" 

- Above, reading Dr. Seuss stories to my Pound Puppies...

-Below, celebrating the "catch of the day" along Ten Mile Creek in Amity, PA

This photo was taken when I was in first grade... Notice the frilly purple jacket, camouflage hat, and stringer of rainbow trout: An average childhood snapshot, growing up in Western Pennsylvania...

Teachers have the privilege of numbering their years upon this planet by their number of years in school--as students, as undergrads, as professionals... Each passing year, an opportunity to connect with yet another group of young minds. Impressionable youth, with malleable ideas and enthusiasm... Dreamers and doers, each writing their own drama of existence. And remember--to a teenager, the drama is oh so real.

As I am rereading Tony Wagner's MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED, I noticed something that I must have glossed over in my first read. Both Wagner and Dintersmith take a moment to thank a very special teacher--someone who made school a place where each student felt welcome, felt like they belonged, felt like they mattered.

For me, that could be so many people who have touched my life. However, I am thinking in particular of a librarian that took me under her wing when I was an awkward middle schooler.

Her name was Mrs.Hackett--and she saved my life.

Okay, that might be a bit dramatic. But I believe it with all sincerity. 

I just love this photo--I'm in fifth grade basking in college life with my oldest brother, on campus at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. My right arm is in my coat because I recently saw a painting of Napoleon and it just seemed like the most logical pose to strike.

Mrs. Hackett knew that my oldest brother was away at school, and I missed my hero and friend. My other brother (who would later join the ranks of hero/friend--but just not at this age... we still fought like close siblings tend to do) was in high school and was too busy learning to play the guitar to pay very much attention to me. 

Mrs. Hackett lured me to the library with the siren song of books--all the books that I could get my hands on. She even Interlibrary-Loaned a few books from college and university collections: I had a fascination with the Nova series In Search of Human Origins and I wanted to read everything that was published in English. If a hominid was involved, I was up for the challenge.

So, there I was--in sixth and seventh grade--carrying college texts on paleoanthropology, writing faux newspaper articles about epic discoveries in Olduvai Gorge by Don Johansen, and dreaming of working in the Institute of Human Origins in Berkley, CA. I rode that momentum through middle school. It carried me into high school and college--where I no longer envisioned myself a budding paleoanthropologist, but definitely had an affinity for biology.

It all began with Mrs. Hackett...

This is an awkward Middle School Math Counts team photo, taken in eighth grade. My friend Tina still looks exactly the same, by the way. Lucky lady.

It should be noted that Mrs. Hackett tricked me. Seriously, it was for my own good--here's the story:

As a sixth grader, wasting away in an end of the day study hall, a totally unproductive exercise in futility--it was nap time for exhausted girls going through growth spurts--I received a message to go to the library. That was the day that Mrs. Hackett introduced me to a new student who just moved to the US from Poland. I was appointed to be his chemistry tutor.

"But, I don't have chemistry--I don't know how to do this?" I said as I looked up from the table, sitting alongside the smiling newcomer, happy to have escaped his study hall, too.

"Well, I guess you will have to learn it in order to teach it..." Oh--she was crafty, the old girl! So, that's what I did...

My goodness, as a teacher, that's what I do. Isn't that what we all strive to do? To be the lead learners in our classrooms and beyond? To plant the seeds of imagination and creativity into fertile minds--so they may grow into curious, lifelong learners.

It took a few twists and turns for me to find the path that lead to obtaining my masters and teaching certificate... But when I did find myself right where I always belonged, I applied for a graduate work study position in the place where I felt most at home:

I was a "Book Fairy" in the Interlibrary Loan Department and it paid for my tuition. Aside from what I do today, it was the greatest job a ragamuffin like me could ever have.

Mrs. Hackett was definitely on to something...