Crim: Four years as paraeducator rewarding experience for this old newspaper guy

QUINCY – The last day of school can be bittersweet.

While students and teachers are eager for a leisurely summer break after a nine-month learning marathon, it also marks an end of a chapter. Educators will have a new crop of students, and kids will have a new teacher and set of classmates,  when school resumes in mid-August.

Tuesday will be especially sad for me.

The last four years of my “retirement” have been spent as a paraeducator at Thomas S. Baldwin Elementary School, providing academic support in regular classrooms to students who need it.

My task has been to help them with their work, keep them focused on learning and encouraging them to accomplish more than they think they can. It requires a deep reservoir of patience — never a strong trait of mine, but a skill I finally honed by working alongside some amazing teachers and with one special kid.

It has been a rewarding experience for this old newspaper guy.

However, growing family obligations forced me to conclude I could no longer continue to juggle those responsibilities along with my work schedule at Baldwin. So, Mr. Crim is turning in his school badge and whistle.

I already know I’m going to miss something I never imagined doing.

After retiring as executive editor of The Herald-Whig in early 2018, I continued to work part-time the rest of that year, primarily in an advisory role from home. It allowed me to stay involved with a company I had been with for nearly 39 years without the daily demands of managing a newsroom and meeting deadlines.

I worked off and on alongside family members for several months the following year, fixing up a rental house to prepare it for sale. Mostly, I taxied grandkids, attended their events, took trips and played A LOT of golf.

With the rental house sold and fall in full swing in 2019, our oldest daughter, Jessica Dedert, apparently was worried her Dad might get bored with golf season winding down and no definitive plans.

I guess it could have become monotonous hanging out at Cedar Crest Country Club playing cards, swapping stories, watching televised sporting events and sipping beverages a few days every week waiting for the next good weather day for golf. We’ll never know.

During a grandson’s Quinsippi Soccer League game one Sunday afternoon, Jessica mentioned there were openings for paraeducators at Baldwin. She thought I would be good at it and would like it, plus there’s a need, especially for men.

We discussed it a little bit. The next thing I know, she’s texting the principal, Jim Sohn, to tell him she has a paraeducator candidate in mind. Jim was excited, having worked with Jessica at Madison School, thinking the candidate was her.

“No, it’s my Dad,” she corrected him.

I have known Jim since my days as a sportswriter and his as an athlete at Quincy Notre Dame and Quincy University. Moreover, two of my grandkids had attended Madison School and two more were enrolled at Baldwin, so we had bumped into each other many times at school events.

We met, discussed the job and the reasons I would want to do it, and toured the school. A week later, I was in Erica Kirlin’s first grade classroom working one-on-one with a boy who initially was leery of his new companion. There were times those first few weeks when I wondered what I had gotten myself into.

Being a paraeducator, or teacher aide, in an elementary school is different than covering the World Series and the Masters or overseeing a newsroom staff and deciding which stories to pursue. The one similarity is that you start with a blank page each day and build from there, hoping for the best.

There was a weekly assembly my first year where students and classes were recognized for positive behavior and academic achievement. Everyone stood to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and the principal asked each student to take a moment to think about something or someone they were thankful for.

At an assembly a few weeks into the job, my student thought for a moment and then looked up to me.

“I’m thankful for you, Mr. Crim,” the then-7-year-old said before giving me a hug.

From that moment on, Damien and I had a relationship.

Resembling a shorter version of TV’s Dennis the Menace, Damien had a difficult time adjusting to kindergarten and had a rocky start to first grade before I arrived. As we became comfortable with each other, many of those issues subsided to manageable levels by Christmas break.

He often made me laugh with some of the spontaneous things he would say or do in the classroom or in the hallways during our walks when I thought he needed a break. His vocabulary was beyond his years, even if his reasoning sometimes wasn’t.

If only I had heeded my wife’s advice to keep a journal during my years at Baldwin, the book would have written itself. Kids do and say the darndest things, and I hit the motherlode with Damien.

We went through first, second and third grades together. He knew my birthday, and I knew his. In third grade, he made his mom buy two sleeves of golf balls to give me for my birthday because he knew I likedto play. Every day he made sure I checked my mail, with him tagging along to the office, of course. 

He was a whiz at math, so he often would tell me to go help other kids when we got to that portion of the day. 

“I’ve got this,” he would say with a wave of his hand.

He struggled with reading and writing, so we concentrated on those. We went from writing one sentence to two sentences to three sentences on assignments. I occasionally bribed him to do more, because rewards motivated Damien. Same thing when it came to coaxing him to eat his lunch.

“You need to eat more so you can grow up to be big and strong,” I would tell him.

“My mom says she wants me to remain a little boy,” he would reply, not realizing she was speaking figuratively, not literally.

In second grade at my urging, he once painstakingly wrote a full-page response in his very best handwriting. He was so proud that he immediately strode to the teacher, Brenda Winking, to show her, beaming.

Damien could be shy in certain situations, but he wasn’t bashful. Many times, he would stop Mr. Sohn in the hallway to voice his displeasure with something or to offer suggestions on how the principal could do his job better.

With my parents experiencing health issues, I contemplated not returning for the 2022-23 school year. I was trying to clean out and sell their house after they moved into assisted living. I was going to turn 66 a few weeks after school began. Maybe it was time to just dabble in my writing for Muddy River Sports and be like most retirees and not set an alarm clock.

But I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to Damien – he called me his best friend – and a third granddaughter would be entering Baldwin. The girls think it’s special having Grandpa at school every day, and Grandpa enjoys seeing them.

Two weeks before school began, Damien’s mom texted me to say that they were moving. I was crushed. I looked forward to getting up each morning to hang out with my buddy, to see what was on his inquisitive mind, to help him learn, to help him overcome his fears and celebrate his achievements.

We were inseparable until we weren’t. We have stayed in touch through FaceTime and letters, but it hasn’t been the same.

Instead, I was moved back to second grade in Ms. Winking’s room to this time work with two boys, which was a bit more challenging.

Ms. Winking is an extraordinary teacher and an even better person, as are so many others at Baldwin. Seeing up close how much teachers today care about students, and the effort they put in daily to overcome obstacles to create a positive learning environment, has reinforced my admiration for the job they do.

The benefit of being in her classroom again was that there was no learning curve for the para. I knew the routine, the workstation rotations, what she was going to teach and when, how she was going to teach it and what her expectations were.

Repeating a grade has its advantages.

While I was primarily responsible for my two boys, the other kids in the classroom would routinely approach me. They asked for help throughout the day, just like previous classes, or they would want to tell me about something that was important to them.

“Guess what, Mr. Crim?” they would anxiously begin.

One girl, whose dad is a high school boys basketball coach, excitedly updated me as the team advanced through the regional and into the sectional last winter. Some boys liked to regale me with video game tales. Sometimes kids would talk about troubles at home, necessitating a hug and an encouraging word.

I’m going to miss those little exchanges and the cute notes some students have written me, as well as kids whose names I don’t know saying “Hi, Mr. Crim” as they enter the building each morning or when our paths cross in a hallway. (Unless you’re Anna Hinkamper, it’s impossible to remember the names of more than 500 students.)

I’ll miss throwing around a football, shooting baskets and refereeing soccer game disputes during recess. I’ll miss kids asking me to push them in swings or to show me how they can daringly dangle upside down on the monkey bars. I’ll miss spending a few minutes trying to cheer up a student feeling lonely or down.

I will especially miss those moments when you can tell a light bulb has gone on, signaling you have found a way to help a kid understand how to solve a math problem, complete a science experiment or know the difference between a noun, verb and adjective and to use them properly in a sentence.

I’m going to miss the teachers and support personnel who have taught me so much and have become friends.

That’s why Tuesday will be sad when we pack up and file out of the classroom for the final time, scattering for a summer break from which I won’t return.

I only hope my time with students over the past four years has been, in some small way, as rewarding and memorable for them as it has been for me.