That Carlann woman done took off her teacher hat

My friend Carlann Scherping taught fourth graders at Saluda School for all the years I have known her. I became acquainted with her when she helped us write a grant request for the Polk County Historical Association about 1997. The Polk County Community Foundation awarded the grant, and the Association acquired a computer, an e-mail address, web page, and a paid data entry person to catalog everything in the museum. Carlann wrote the lesson guide for the annual visits by students to the museum, and her students designed the web page and put it up on the Internet!
I praised her in our PCHA Newsletter and verbally at her wedding, saying that "For children who are fortunate enough to have Carlann for fourth grade, it won’t matter what happens after that, because they will have learned enough to be successful in all that they ever try to do." There is more truth than poetry in that, as Mama Rippy used to say.
Carlann was always taking her students out of the classroom on field trips. These outings were reported in the local press, and I would e-mail Carlann right away: "I see by the papers where that Carlann woman done took them kids out of school AGIN, and wore them out on some eddy-kay-shun-ul opry-toonity. Them little heads must be crammed plum full of knowledge by now!"
One regular field trip was to the North Carolina coast: they sailed on a Duke research vessel and spent time out in the salt marsh with marine biologists. Each year she had her class publish a book about some aspect of life in Saluda, originally to help pay for the field trips. For the first of these class book projects, she asked her students to interview residents who were "old" so they could learn about the past. They came back with stories by 30-year-olds, so she then advised them to talk to people more than 60 years old!
Carlann’s fourth graders videotape the interviews, write the stories, design the book’s pages, scan old photographs, process digital pictures, get the books printed, and sell them to the public. I know college graduates who are intimidated by having to write a report, or even their memoirs for the grandkids! Obviously, Carlann was not one of their teachers.
Carlann was a teachers’ assistant in the early 80s when Lib Ormand and the late Lib Correll began to suggest that she obtain a teaching certificate. Carlann resisted, and Lib Ormand persisted, until one day Carlann protested that she would be 35 years old by the time she completed the degree. Lib just laughed and said, "Child, you are going to be 35 anyway, why not have a degree?"
So Carlann began classes at Gardner-Webb that lead to her getting not only the BS degree but an MA as well. Then Nancy Wilson of the Central Office told her of a new thing that she thought Carlann should go for, and Carlann became one of the first 525 teachers in the nation to have National Board Certification as a Middle Childhood generalist.
Then the awards for her work began to come in. They are numerous and prestigious, believe me. I am glad that I am just one of many persons who recognize the value of Carlann’s special ways of inspiring children to learn and to do.
So you see, Carlann has the credentials and the peer recognition appropriate for her teaching career. But I think that for Carlann, the essence of her life among her fourth graders is found in watching them grow and develop, not only while entrusted to her, but for years after as they fulfil my prophecy for them.
Thank you, Carlann.
Yes, that "Carlann woman done took off her teacher hat," and put it away with her other trophies, I guess. I was tempted to write that this is the end of an era for Saluda School, but I have to think that is not so, for even now another dedicated teacher is preparing to lift some fourth graders to new levels of understanding and ability.