This Important Ingredient—A Spice

AKA THE spice of life, get it? Let’s see if you do.

The other day, in going through a picture album, I rediscovered this:

See me???

My second grade class photo.

I am unfathomably 51 years removed from when that picture was taken. That is our teacher in the back on the right—Mrs. Atkins. I remember about half of the names of my friends here (this photo did not have the names of classmates listed).

I’ve been posting Postcards from the Principal’s Office recently—sharing stories from my career as a teacher and school principal. I didn’t know, when I was this second grader, that I’d be devoting my life and career as a public school teacher. When I was this second grader, I really don’t think I knew exactly what I “wanted to be when I grew up,” outside of an astronaut, Superman, Evel Knievel, The Six Million Dollar Man, a crop duster, and a three-sport professional football/baseball/soccer player. Just your normal every day American boy scenario.

But this post isn’t a Postcard, it’s about Alchemy, mine, and this class, this school, these friends, these teachers, and this time and place called 1970’s Toppenish Washington on the Yakama Indian Reservation. THIS was where I fell in love with both learning and a place called school—but this was also when and where all the initial ingredients of my Alchemy were placed in the crucible that was and is still my life, with the burners set to simmer.

Not that I ended up taking “the easy way out,” because I did begin my college career as a pre-med student, school was always a comfortable place for me. So when I became disillusioned by the pre-med course of things, I landed back in the realm of comfort where I had always excelled. And I never looked back—in the end, after resigning my principal position from my very last school, I had shown up for 53 consecutive years for the first day of school! And over the course of that time, I also discovered I, as well as all the amazing individuals who devote their lives to teaching, was doing the world’s most important work…hands down.

McKinley Elementary was my first school. It no longer exists—in 1980 (7 years after my second grade year; 2 years after I left during the middle of my sixth grade year in 1978), McKinley Elementary officially closed its doors to make way eventually for Heritage College—a one-of-a-kind public, non-tribal collegiate institution on Native Tribal land.

Click on the photo to enlarge to read the entire slide

McKinley Elementary was one-of-a-kind as well. It’s where I went to school (which makes it one of a kind for me!). I remember, though I have no record of it, that McKinley was something of a renowned school for its educational creativity and excellence. Regardless of all that, “that” being stuff that never matters to the students who attend, McKinley, and its teachers, were truly outstanding.

My Alchemy

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), sadly, has been politicized during the MAGA era. I place blame squarely on ignorant and fear-mongering Republican political leaders who continue to cause great harm by their rhetoric. Looking back at that class photo, I am very proud and grateful to have been one face among the 28 there (25 kids, three educators). I didn’t fully appreciate what I had standing there on the front steps of McKinley Elementary in second grade—those were just my friends, those were just my teachers. But I understand and appreciate this more than ever now. The diversity of that group, in ethnicity, the man-made distinction of race, tribal affiliations, poverty levels, spoken language, family values, and even religious backgrounds was a strength—a strength that, unbeknownst to me at the time, was already working its Alchemy on my own core beliefs and the values I nurtured as a teacher.

McKinley Elementary was a unique school situated as it was in the rural farmland west of Toppenish Washington on the Yakama Indian Reservation. It was a part of the Toppenish School District and served the mostly blue-collar, farm-employed families of that countryside. I lived, literally, less than a quarter mile, in the middle of a hop field, from the school on the same Fort Road that Heritage University still sits on. (My boyhood home still exists—same spot, same distance from the school—as it did in the 1970’s. That home looks as if time stood still in these intervening years.)

As is the case with all old photos, especially the best ones, especially those from a second grade boyhood’s years gone by, a flood of memories returns. I didn’t realize my friends had different hues of skin colors from mine such that that should matter in any way. I didn’t care. It’s not that I professed to be color blind (I’m not; in all ways, I’m not), a second grader just wants to have friends. McKinley Elementary was a very small school—not quite the proverbial “one room schoolhouse,” it came close in that there was only one class in each of its kindergarten through 6th grades (in fact, I remember enrollment declining such that a couple grades had to be combined/spilt, bringing us closer to “the one room.). This meant that, aside from a few students who would move in or out over the course of time, THIS one class was MY class for seven straight years! I was them, they were me. My family were not Native American and so were not Tribal members, but some of my friends were and they grew to show me how proud they were of that rich heritage. My family farmed the land and so were not rich, and neither were my friends but I would say now we each were wealthy because we had each other, and knew each other well. My family knew nothing of intolerance or hatred or racial disparities, and neither did any of my friends (to my knowledge); and though my parents worked hard as farm homesteaders, my siblings and I were able to join cub scouts, attend Catholic church, play sports, and stay overnight at friends houses—these friends, my second grade friends! These friends with whom I shared food, time, laughter, playground/recess antics, and the most formative of school years during my elementary school life, are my Alchemy.

My family moved during the middle of my sixth grade year, after hop harvest and as my Dad bought and leased farmland in Moxee Washington about 20 miles north of Toppenish and off of officially-designated Tribal land. (I’ll take a sacred moment here to remind us all that ALL of American land is Tribal land—whether officially designated as such, or unceded.) My new school became Moxee Elementary (shout out to Mr. Smith, my sixth grade teacher there who was SUCH a perfect, gentle soul to help welcome and integrate a highly anxious and nervous new student into his class). THAT class “looked more like me.” And there were more of us—Moxee Elementary serving a wider geographical and less diverse area. That move was a culture-shock for me. I missed my Toppenish friends—there being no smart phones, there was no real, “real-time” way to stay in touch or connection with those friends—so we lost touch. When I left, I don’t think, but for only one occasion, on the football field in 8th grade with my “old” friend Kevin (pictured in the back row at the right shoulder of the middle paraeducator), that I saw or spoke to any of these friends again. Life had to go on—and no adult knew how to help a 13 year-old grieve such a loss. But although those ties became permanently severed, I did quickly assimilate to my new surroundings—no small thanks to Mr. Smith and the fact I could hit a baseball homerun into the field at recess after being picked last on a team (the last time I was ever picked last, btw). Remember, school was always a comfortable place for me—I did well academically, excelled at sports, got along great with all my teachers, and was able to cultivate a wide friendship cohort though mostly at a distance (I was always, as well, an introvert). Those early ties, though, my elementary years, were my formative years—they formed the beginning of an Alchemy that continued to cook and change me all the way through to my day of resignation—well, actually, all the way through to right now.

More needs to be written about the vital concept of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion within the realms and worlds of our educational institutions (and even in our wider society as an entire whole—such is the consequence of hurtful and harmful rhetoric). But I need to save those thoughts for the Principal Postcards because it was during my time as a teacher and educational leader where these early influences of diversity, that took root in 1970s McKinley Elementary, bore ultimate fruit. As a child, I had no idea that we were different—that anyone in that class of 25 second graders were going to grow into adults who would be compartmentalized, become vilified, and further impoverished because they were born with a darker skin or didn’t speak my language “good enough” or didn’t have the bank accounts that could comfortably keep their heads above the capitalistic water level. I realize my parents had no other option to send my brother and me to a different school (why would they, we were 300 yards away!); but I do credit them for allowing us, hard as they worked, to cultivate and encourage the friendships with those other 24 faces. From these beginnings, I am able to track the growth of the seeds of my compassion, kindness, fairness, commitment to DEI principles, and social justice passions that served all my own future students well (I trust). I was a damn good teacher; I was a damn good principal. ALL because I was a damn good student who had DAMN good teachers and friends.

I got my start at McKinley Elementary, y’all!

It was a damn great start!!!

---

Live, Laugh, and Love—with Clear Eyes and Full Hearts,

Always and Ubuntu,

~ kert

And with Ahimsa!

🙏🏼

PS: Get it now? The spice of life?

Diversity is just another name for variety.

BTW:

I’ve lost the name to time of the paraeducator in the frame, but I remember Steven and Francis and Felipé and Kelly and Pedro and Tommy—in counter clockwise around me. Six of my friends they were. And likely still would be.