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Twelve years ago, Starlynn Nadeau sat near my desk in my fifth-grade classroom at Rail Ranch Elementary School in Murrieta.
She was chatty (her words, not mine), but also hard working and kind — the type of person you enjoy teaching.
Now I’m sitting in her fifth-grade classroom, but she’s the teacher, not me. She’s still all of the above, which means she’ll make a great teacher.
Life often takes unexpected twists, and for Nadeau (“Ms. Star” to her students) and me, that’s definitely true. To think that somebody I once taught is now teaching the same grade I taught her is beyond surreal.
She’s a substitute teaching long-term at E. Hale Curran Elementary School in Murrieta. Her principal is Greg Lumsden, who taught fifth grade with me at Rail Ranch. Nadeau rotated to him for math.
More surreal.
At 5-foot-2, Nadeau isn’t much taller than many students. Her hair is still long and blond, just as it was in fifth grade. Now she wears glasses.
When a kid blurted something out, she quickly reviewed her behavior expectations.
“I know, none of us want to be here after a long weekend. I want to be here, and that’s what matters.”
Surrounding her are the usual posters that inspire, such as “This classroom is better with you in it” and “Don’t spread hate to anyone.”
If only the world were as idealistic as a classroom.
Nadeau, 22, said she is living that perfect life, meaning a teacher’s.
She got the idea when a nanny and a grandmother told her she should teach because she had a big heart.
“I’ll never forget that conversation,” she said.
Nadeau attended elementary school, middle school (Shivela) and high school (Murrieta Mesa) locally before shifting to Mt. San Jacinto College and finishing at Northern Arizona University.
Murrieta Valley Unified School District spokesperson Monica Gutierrez called Nadeau a “legacy” employee, meaning that she attended local schools and now works in one. There are 245 in the district. Superintendent Ward Andrus started the program a couple of years ago.
Nadeau has also worked at a preschool, so kids have long been her profession. She chose it “because I felt it was something I’d love to do every day. So far, there is nothing more fulfilling.”
She puts in 10- and 11-hour days, typical for a first-year teacher. She’s also learned that education has a lot of rules.
“My dream teaching job is a hard class with a loose curriculum that allows teachers to still assess standards, but the freedom to teach the standards how you choose, allowing students to learn the way they choose to.”
More of that idealism.
Unlike many teachers, Nadeau enjoys working with what she calls “behavior kids,” and she might get her master’s degree in psychology to better understand such challenges.
Her favorite day of the week is Wednesday because that’s when she invites her kids to eat with her, which she called “family lunch … It has taught me more about my students than I could ever gather in a week. Every week, this is a moment I remember why I chose this career.”
I met Nadeau when I taught second grade and her half-sister Kailey was in my class. Every Friday, I’d let a table of students eat lunch in the room and they could invite a friend. Nadeau had a different teacher, but she was often at lunch because of Kailey or her “boyfriend” at the time, who was in my class. At least he liked to think that.
I continued that lunch practice in fifth grade. Nadeau said she remembered those gatherings.
Today, still calling me “Mr. Love” and sometimes “Carl,” she said she also borrowed the multiplication songs and the human sentence game that I’ve also taught her current students when I dropped by her classroom while substitute teaching myself at Curran.
She said her parents liked my teaching their daughters because I was “very personable” and they could tell I was a teacher who “cared.”
Of course, I’m touched. I said that’s how I view her as a teacher, too. To me, these are the ultimate superpowers a teacher can have.
Reach Carl Love at carllove4@yahoo.com.
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