Reporter

Teachers as Heroes:
School Parent Salutes Eagle Hill Faculty
am astonished by the generosity,”
“Isaid Louise Foerster, chair of the
Teacher Appreciation Luncheon.
Between the willing pool of volunteers
for set-up and clean-up, the sumptuous
list of salads and desserts, and the
donations for beverage and paper
goods, it was clear how fully the
teachers had earned the respect and
gratitude of the parents. In the following
tribute to the teachers, Louise
compared them to heroes:
“It started, as many important things
do, during an ordinary carpool morning
to Eagle Hill. I announced brightly
to the three boys in the car that I
was helping with the Teacher
Appreciation Luncheon this year and
could use their ideas. Utter silence. It
was a Monday. And the day was gray.
It was April and it was still cold. Then
a small voice ventured, “I think you
should have
duckies for
everyone.
Get all different
ones so
everyone can
choose the
duck they
like.”
Another
voice piped
up, “Hey, are
there any
World of Warcraft ducks yet?”
Thus ended the first high-level, insiders-only
meeting concerning today’s
luncheon. And this is why there are
tiny ducks perched in and
around the flowers on each
table. So to the clever
observation, “Why a duck?”
My carpool and I respond,
“Why not?”
Why not, indeed?
More and more, I think that
many of us start out as ugly
ducklings. We’re small,
vulnerable, open souls full
of joy and exuberance. The lucky
ducklings among us grow up to
become their most magnificent swan
selves.
Not all ugly
ducklings are
lucky ducks.
Some spend
their entire
lives swimming
around
the same
muddy puddle.
Others
suffer terribly,
trying so hard
to be ordinary ducks, breaking their
hearts trying to be smart or pretty or
clever like the mallard ducks next
door. These ugly ducklings never get
to become the swans they truly are.
But if we are
very blessed
ducks, we
have someone
who
helps us on
our way to
becoming our
swan selves.
Often it’s a
parent, a
grandparent,
a coach.
For the children of Eagle Hill and their
parents and all the people around
them, we are all of us lucky ducks
blessed with a lively community of
heroes committed to helping us
becoming our swan selves.
And this is no ordinary bunch of runof-the-mill
superheroes. Nope. The
regular superheroes have it easy. They
have urgent missions. The mean guys
are so clearly evil, wearing bad
clothes and black hats and bad hair.
Usually they talk funny – and, I suspect,
smell pretty bad. Against these
villains set upon destroying the earth,
the regular superheroes have cool outfits,
nifty weapons, and endless
resources. Many have loyal sidekicks
or butlers to help out. Many times the
battles are ferocious, but the heroes
always beat
the mean
guys.
However, the
mean guys
that the
heroes of
Eagle Hill face
aren’t even
really mean
guys at all.
They are all
the hedges of fear, apathy, despair,
doubt, surrounding the tangles of brilliance
within each one of the ducks in
your charge. Eagle Hill heroes wield
encouragement, incredible skills, profound
respect, keen insight and high
expectations. You calmly resolve
calamities with homework, lost clothing,
bad pitches and adolescent angst.
{For me personally, adolescent angst is
enough to hurtle me under my bed
with a new novel and a thick bar of
dark chocolate.}
But for the heroes of Eagle Hill, no
matter. You tie ties. You teach children
to make sense of letters and
numbers and how to tell their own
stories. You referee intense battles
between best friends. You make sure
that everyone learns, in his or her
own special way. And you do so
with humor, intelligence, grace and
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