Cycling through

“Oh! My first one!” said my team partner Amber Rinella, as a former student gave her a graduation announcement. Rinella had finally arrived when a generation of students moves on and remembers you.

Nothing replaces that feeling of belonging to a community. At first glance, it bears credit between the teacher and student. At another angle, this story is about what happens when teacher finds town, and vice versa. It is about commitment; a story about what happens when you stay long enough to see them grow up.

This was the year I had students who were children of former students. I first started work in the Mat-Su at Snowshoe Elementary, so it is only natural that I might have students of students once I came to Wasilla Middle School since Snowshoe feeds directly into WMS. But now I can say I also have had students of students whom my husband knew the grandparents. I work with teachers of whom I taught with their parents. Wait, I have students of teachers of whom I worked with their grandparents! I can’t say this makes me feel young, but it does make me feel proud.

When I first started work in the Valley there were few students who had been born here, and fewer still who had extended families in Alaska. Everyone had a story of how they came to Wasilla, and at the end of every year several teachers and families would pull up stakes and move home. It was boom and bust, come and go, and a rolling stone with no moss. So, to realize the generation of Alaskans in my classroom is a point of pride. New blood arrived, disrupted the good ol’ boy process, and then stayed to raise their children. Our families put roots down and I am witness to the benefits of such a community.

Of course, there are a lot of concerns I have for our community and a certain amount of disagreement with some of the choices we have made. But we are a big valley tightly woven together with 44 schools and 17,380 students. It is a place where it is still important to remember that it isn’t so much about who we know as it is who knows us. Warts and all, it’s home.

I am proud to be a part of a Valley that fosters a home in which to stay and raise a family. From families come legacies — and sometimes invitations to a graduation. My partner Amber Rinella? You might remember her as Amber Lee, a Houston High graduate raised in Willow.

My Town

My town is the place where

My house is found

Business is located, and

Where my vote is cast,

It is where my children are

Educated, and where my life is.

My town has a right to my civic loyalty,

It supports me and I should support it.

My town wants my citizenship,

Not my partisanship,

My friendliness not my dissensions

My sympathies, not my criticism

My intelligence, not my indifference.

My town supplies me with protection,

Trade, friends, education

Schools, churches, and the right to

Free moral citizenship.

It has some things better than others.

The best things I should see to make better.

The worst things I should help to suppress.

Take all in all,

It is my town and it is entitled to the best there is in me.

— circa 1938

Emily Forstner teaches language arts at Wasilla Middle School. She moved to the Valley in 1983 and has enjoyed teaching in Valley schools every year since.