01907 Summer 2020 V3

24 | 01907
A career of the heart
BY DAVID
MCLELLAN
There are roughly 4,400
unique writing samples in
Elizabeth Flynn’s collection,
each written by a different
person. She’s kept a single
sample from each student she
taught in her decades-long
career.
Wait — there's more —
laminated postcards and
letters from past students and
pictures with former pupils
on their wedding days. Her
relationships with students
was what drove Flynn to
teach for so long, and she
keeps those relationships
close to the heart with her
home collection.
“Even from the time I
was a little girl, playing with
my younger sisters, I always
played school. Being a teacher
is just who I am,” Flynn said.
“The joke was always if I had
to become a nun to teach, I
would.”
Flynn retired this year
from a 44-year teaching career
with 26 years spent teaching
eighth-grade English at
Swampscott Middle School.
She was honored by former
students and colleagues in
June with a parade — along
with fellow retiring teacher
Bill Andrake and librarian Sandra Moltz
— and, reflecting back, said she couldn’t
have had a more fulfilling career.
“I came to Swampscott in 1994, and
that’s my family,” said Flynn, who had
taught in several other places, including
Winthrop and Andover, earlier in her
career.
A Melrose resident who grew up in
Somerville, Flynn, 65, said teaching in
Swampscott gave her purpose and it is
where the classroom became her “stage.”
“I had fun. If I had to teach Poe, I
would have a shirt on like him, or dress
like Maya Angelou,” she said. “I went in
and I was on stage.”
“I have been
the happiest
person.
If you go
find a job
you love, it
won’t be
a job.”
— Elizabeth
Flynn
Elizabeth Flynn reflects on her 44 years of teaching after retiring this year from
Swampscott Middle School.
PHOTOS: OLIVIA FALCIGNO
During her decades in the classroom,
Flynn saw former students go on to
become teachers and some became
colleagues teaching in rooms down the
hall from Flynn.
"There have been multiple times I had
students later become teachers right next
to me: Lara Dandreo is now teaching;
Kirsten Rigol, now teaching. Last year
was the first year I had a daughter of a
boy I had in eighth grade,” she said.
She loves surprising her studentsturned-teachers
by taking out one of
their eighth grade writing samples and
reading it.
“I keep one from every student I ever
had,” Flynn said.
Flynn said her relationship
with past students has
remained incredibly close,
even with students she taught
decades ago. This summer,
she received a letter from a
student who was in her class
in 1997. The woman wrote
that Flynn’s class and the time
Flynn dedicated to J.R.R.
Tolkein's "The Fellowship of
the Ring" novels had a great
impact on her.
“I just want to thank you,”
the former student wrote,
“I had a lot of issues, but I
always looked forward to your
class because we laughed, and
we did so much writing. It
gave me a sense of purpose.”
Another student calls her
every year on her birthday —
December 15.
“I will keep all the letters I
get forever,” Flynn said.
Flynn said she was
inspired by a Somerville
middle school teacher
who was tough on her but
inspiring. She hopes she
made a similar mark on her
students.
One of Flynn’s favorite
memories of past students
is seeing a former student
on the train 20 years after
teaching him, and noticing
he held a copy of Reader’s
Digest. The student excitedly
told Flynn she introduced him to the
magazine, and he’s been reading it ever
since.
“You like to hope kids listen to you,”
Flynn said. “I can run into a student at
Disney years later, and they will come up
to me and recite, ‘Nature's first green is
gold, Her hardest hue to hold, Her early
leaf's a flower, But only so an hour,’ and
they’ll remember because we worked so
hard on 'The Outsiders.'
“There’s nothing like eighth graders.
People say they’re surly and this and that,
but they are so involved with everything.
They always want to let you know their
opinion,” she said.