Abstract:

Laura Reasoner Jones describes her community's homecoming parade, and the experience of living close within the community where she works as a teacher.

Jones, L.R. (2004). Following the cow home. Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 11 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/LJ08_04_05.html 

Full Text:

Following the Cow Home

Each October, one Saturday morning is very special to me. I make sure I am finished with my grocery shopping by 8:45 a.m., and I schedule nothing else until after 11:00. This is the Saturday morning when my whole professional career passes before me in the procession known as the High School Homecoming Parade. You see, I am one of those lucky teachers who lives where she works.

Many teachers in my program make a concerted effort not to be placed in the neighborhood or elementary school district where they live. They say it is too big of a hassle, or that they don't like seeing the families they work with on the weekends. I feel differently, and I guess that I have never been sorry for my decision. To the contrary, I think it works to everyone's benefit.

I live in a small town of four square miles within the most crowded county in both the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Washington DC metropolitan area. In the 25 years I have lived here, my little town has changed dramatically from a sleepy little farm village to the area with the highest proportion of foreign-born residents in the suburbs. Just about every non-protected farm or field has been built over with "McMansions," and we have three Starbucks within the four square miles. But thank goodness, some things haven't changed.

I have been attending the Homecoming Parade for 23 years, since my older daughter Christiana was old enough to watch from her stroller. There are always politicians in convertibles, Homecoming Princesses in suits, and high school students throwing candy from floats. Unfortunately, marching bands, fire engines and large honking town recycling trucks don't mix well with a little girl with sensory issues. We quickly learned to stand very far away from the street and warn Christie when the band was coming.

As she grew, we watched her march in the parade as a Brownie, as a "Just Say No" kid, and as a freshman on the class float. By then, her younger sister Julie was marching too, as a Brownie, an Optimist Club cheerleader, and then as an ROTC cadet. And that's when I began to learn how truly wonderful it is to work where you live.

I started this job when Julie was in preschool. That year she and I sat in our lawn chairs to watch the parade from our traditional place under a beautiful maple tree on the main street sidewalk. As the Cub Scouts went by, I heard my name being called from the marchers. It was one of my families marching as a family with their 7 year old. My student was waving madly to me, probably glad to see a familiar face. This happened twice more that year with the Brownies and the Town Councilwoman's grandson. (Small town, remember?) The next year it happened more frequently, as my former students went to kindergarten and began marching with their own Daisy troops or soccer teams. And then it was time to put Julie in the parade and be a parent marcher with her Brownie troop. That was hilarious, as I was waving to more people than she was, probably because all of her friends were marching.

The best years were when she was older. The year she was the drum major for the middle school marching band, I had prepped all 16 of my families to scream out her name as the band marched by. And then, the one year she was in ROTC, several families managed to distract her from "Eyes front" by calling to her as the unit marched by. Ah, the joys of embarrassing your child!

Now, these wonderful October Saturdays are marked by reunions with numerous "old families." The moms or dads point me out on the sidelines and we all wave at each other like mad, or we meet after the parade at the Great Harvest bakery for the free bread slices and hot coffee. We have joyful conversation after conversation. We catch up on each others' lives and commiserate with shared concerns. We promise to do lunch, although we rarely do, and we all leave smiling.

This year's parade was special for the high school seniors. Two of their four years have been seriously disrupted, first by 9/11, impacting many children whose parents work at the Pentagon, and the next year by the Washington area snipers, when the football games were moved as much as 50 miles away to fields out of town and everyone walked looking over their shoulders. The best float this year was by the sophomores, who built a replica of the town train depot accompanied by lots of kids dressed up as cows cheering for their class. I spent the time with a former parent; we dissected the new elementary school principal, medications for ADD, and the differences in raising sons and daughters.

And as the parade ended, and the kids dispersed to reconvene on the football field for the afternoon game, I followed a sophomore cow home down the bike trail. It's a vanishing way of life, but I love it.

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