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INTEROPERABLE 011 Teachers, Teaching, Thoughts, and Thinking

Tyler DIckey

— 4 min read
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Hello Interoperable Readers,

For the 11th edition of Interoperable, I wanted to pivot from my normal tech-nerd topics into something more personal. I've wanted to write about teaching and teachers for a long time now. Finding the correct words that felt sincere and honest enough to live up to the sincerity and honesty of my teachers have always felt insurmountable.

Trigger Warning: References to suicide and depression. If you have any sensitivity to those topics, please feel free to skip this issue. 

I'm in the interesting position of being one of the first graduating classes (2008, go Huskies!) of the social media era, many of my old teachers are active online, and I can see their triumphs and their flaws (even if it is only through the opaque filter of online life). I am now at an age where I am as old or older than many of them were when they taught me. COVID gifted (or cursed) me with much spare time to Google old friends and teachers. Googling Strangers, Googling friends, Googling old teachers, and ex-lovers is something that I am fiendishly good at, almost to a fault.

I have fond memories of Kindergarten and my teacher Mrs O'Donnell, Mrs O. I would hope that most memories are fond when you're six years old. Mrs O was a bit of a Ms Frizzle from the Magic School Bus type, with crazy dresses in fun patterns. We did your usual and some strange experiments in class, baking soda volcanoes, seeing if an egg would balance on the solstice, LOTS of play dough and colouring, everything in one would hope for in Kindergarten.

I was put in her class a year early for one day, and I wasn't quite ready to leave preschool and enter Kindergarten. I remember her warmth as she explained that I would be in her class next year. She didn't make me feel stupid or disappointed, I was elated that I would be back there soon enough.  

Nearly 30 years later, I found myself Googling any teachers I could remember. I worked in reverse chronological order, University, 12 through K. I could not find many. The public social internet seems to have mercifully skipped a generation. I tried to send nice notes through the contact channels I could find. I made it. I'm alive. Thank you for contributing to who I am. In the uncertain times created by the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was comforting to flip through the past and give even the smallest thanks.

That is until I got to Kindergarten. By this point, I'd gotten fairly good at Googling teachers, names, cities, and school websites via Wayback Machine usually turned up plenty. For Mrs O, I found an article from a CBS affiliate in Chicago dated 27 December 2010: Woman Dies After Setting Herself On Fire.

Saying my heart sank is an understatement. My heart plummeted, and my insides turned to hot lead and churned like the sea.

In a panic, I read more articles and found information about the memorial held at my old rural Colorado school. From the Denver Post:

CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo.—Illinois authorities say a Colorado elementary school teacher died after setting herself on fire in her brother’s basement.


KOAA-TV reports that 63-year-old Mary Louise O’Donnell died at a hospital Monday after the fire the previous day in the Chicago suburb of Lake Villa. O’Donnell was a longtime teacher at Cresson Elementary in Cripple Creek, Colo., and was visiting her brother.


Authorities say notes they found show O’Donnell was depressed and that she doused herself with kerosene and set herself on fire.


Police say O’Donnell was severely burned but still alive when firefighters put out the blaze.


Friend and fellow teacher Gari Lu Schwab tells KOAA-TV that O’Donnell was dealing with depression and had some medical problems.

I've been in the throes of deep, clinical depression and in that moment, I felt present in that Chicago basement. I still find it hard to believe she is gone and that her life ended suddenly and violently. I wondered why it had taken me so long to learn about what happened. I felt both a sickening regret and relief. Could I have handled this news as a 21-year-old? Is it worse now as a man in his early 30s living through a global pandemic? I'll never know.

I am deeply grateful to those who teach and unlock our capacities for self-awareness and growth. You can give back by supporting a classroom in your community: DonorsChoose.


"Human beings are never gonna be perfect…The best we can do is to keep asking for help and accepting it when you can. And if you keep on doing that, you’ll always be moving towards better." (Leslie Higgins from the show "Ted Lasso" S3 E12)


If you are struggling, please know that help is out there.


USA:

  1. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) Website: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
  2. Crisis Text Line: Text "HELLO" to 741741. Website: https://www.crisistextline.org/
  3. National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Helpline: 1-800-950-NAMI (1-800-950-6264) Website: https://www.nami.org/help
  4. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (1-800-662-4357) Website: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline
  5. Veterans Crisis Line: 1-800-273-8255 (Press 1) Website: https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/

UK:

  1. Samaritans: 116 123 Website: https://www.samaritans.org/
  2. Mind Infoline: 0300 123 3393 Website: https://www.mind.org.uk/
  3. CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) Helpline: 0800 58 58 58 Website: https://www.thecalmzone.net/
  4. PAPYRUS (Prevention of Young Suicide) Helpline: 0800 068 4141 Website: https://papyrus-uk.org/
  5. Shout Crisis Text Line: Text "SHOUT" to 85258. Website: https://www.giveusashout.org/

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