Special Teacher

Will Be Missed

My wife and I were shocked and saddened to read of the loss of Mrs. Parker as special education teacher at the Tunbridge Central School. There are a few people in everyone's life that stand out and make a real difference and Mrs. Parker was one of those people to our youngest son and his early struggles in school.

She not only did her immediate job in the school system, helping him learn to read, encouraging him to succeed, but unlike others she did it without making him feel like a "special" student. It was always done with a smile and positive input coupled with a unique understanding of the difficulties some children have grasping the concept and visualization of the written word.

Understand that one day, halfway through second grade, Paul came home lamenting his struggles and said to me; "Now take that ‘Dad’ … if Dad was just 4 1 4, I would have no problem with reading." For those who don't get the correlation, D is the fourth letter of the alphabet and A is the first.

It is easy to teach and praise those who have a natural inclination towards learning just as it is easy to teach baseball to one who's athletically gifted. Unfortunately, one or the other is a struggle for many. Teachers who pat themselves on the back for "teaching" students who would learn if they were placed in a closet with a pile of books are at the heart of the deepening problems at Tunbridge Central School. Unfortunately not all children fall into education with the ease that many of these teachers did.

It takes a special person to take each struggling individual, find where the connections are not being made in the learning process and have the wisdom, patience and ability to direct and inspire them to succeed. Mrs. Parker had these in spades along with a genuine interest in their continued successes.

We have three grandchildren now, one of whom is getting ready to start school in the fall in Tunbridge. Hopefully someone will be there to help them if they need it with the same skill, love and interest as Dianne Parker did for so long.

JC and Linda Bradford

Tunbridge