Some teachers do more than teach, and the West Liberty Community School District is fortunate to have so many teachers doing so much more.
Every teacher deserves a comfortable retirement, but it still hurts when we say goodbye to those who influenced the community so deeply.
Melody Russell is one such teacher. Her experience has carried her all over the world, and put her in a position to do more than teach.
Russell has spent her 30+ years in education as a teacher and mentor, ending her time at the WLCSD as the teachers’ teacher.
Russell began teaching in West Liberty in 2001, but it wasn’t her first dual-language school.
“Before that, I taught for eight years in Kuwait,” Russell said. “I taught at a dual-language school with English and Arabic.”
Over the decades, Russell’s job duties have been broad and varied. She has taught Language Arts and Social Studies, and as an instructional coach she supports teachers, helping them find strategies for classroom management and student engagement.
She also works closely with the English Language Learners in our district as well as being the TLC coordinator. Russell has spent her career as an educator keeping very busy and wearing plenty of hats.
While she has worked with a variety of ages, Russell has found herself most at home with middle schoolers.
“I like middle school,” she said, “because students are still really enthusiastic about learning, for the most part. They’re honest. No day is the same.”
Russell enjoys the variations in students at that age range. As they grow and change, middle school educators get glimpses of the kids that they were and the adults that they will be. Middle school requires a certain amount of flexibility from educators as the students transition from one phase of life into the next.
Russell has a deep understanding of that flexibility. Middle school itself is enough to require thinking outside of the box, but middle school during and after a global pandemic was even more demanding.
“I guess maybe I had experience with teaching in Kuwait after the invasion,” Russell said, “and students being hidden away.”
Kuwait in the early 1990s was a war zone, and many of Russell’s students missed school or attended intermittently for a couple of years.
“When they came back to school, they made it so that it was a fast track, longer days, and everyone did two school years in one. Plus, there’s just the psychological and socio-emotional factors,” Russell said.
And when it comes to helping kids through traumatic events, Russell keeps it simple.
“Kids really respond to relationship building,” she said. She now teaches the children of many of her former students.
When the world shut down for Covid, Russell was unruffled. Armed with a variety of teaching experiences, she walked into the school and got back to work supporting the teachers and students.
“I do think that after Covid, there was a really big burnout. It was really hard teaching after Covid because when we came back, we didn’t just go back to school as normal.”
When schools opened in the fall of 2020, students were split into two groups and attended school only every other week, as well as many students who attended exclusively online.
Teachers were expected to manage lesson plans for every student’s needs, and some of those needs included reintroducing basic social concepts, and many teachers found it exhausting.
“That’s what we try and do as Instructional Coaches,” she said, “be that resource for teachers.”
“Teachers are resilient,” Russell said, “these strategies might work well for first and second period, but for third period we’ve got to try something else, and that’s why it’s so important for teachers to keep learning new techniques. It’s all about learning how kids learn best.”
Russell will be retiring at the end of this year, but she won’t be gone. She intends to return as a sub when she’s not enjoying her free time.
“I’ve been teaching for longer than some of my coworkers have been alive,” Russell laughed. “I don’t feel like I’ve been teaching forever; I still enjoy it, I still love it. I still really enjoy working with kids.”
Russell intends to become more active in the boards and organizations that she loves. She’s on the Community Center Board and the WeLead Board. She is considering a road trip along the Oregon trail.
“I have a friend in Costa Rica that I went to stay with before,” Russell said, “now I can go and see her again… and of course, there’s my flowers in the yard.”
Russell’s beautiful flower gardens are one of the finer features of North Calhoun. Her appreciation of visual beauty also fuels other hobbies, like painting.
“I’m going to try and put some time and energy back into my art,” she said. She plans to spend more time painting and drawing and would like to learn more about watercolor.
She also plans to spend more time with her grandchildren, who are 4 and 10.
Russell will be attending the WLCSD retirement party on Wednesday, May 8th, and will complete her employment at the end of the school year. After a long and influential career, her retirement is much deserved.
She will be missed!