Main Sections

‘Each Child is Our Future’ Sharing Teaching Memories With Barbara Bolduc

photo by Photo Provided While it seems like it was just the other day when Barbara Bolduc entered her classroom at Ferrisburgh Elementary, it was in fact 45 years ago. Finishing her teaching career this June, Mrs. Bolduc still sees each day as new and exciting and each child as the future.

photo by Photo Provided Seated with her current class, Barbara Bolduc's passion for community, reading, and projects are hallmarks of her classroom.

photo by Photo Provided Reading holds such power for all children and in Mrs. Bolduc's room reading is fun!

Tuesday June 2, 2015

By Cookie Steponaitis

Barbara Bolduc’s second grade classroom invites you to learn. It is colorful, cozy and contains not only traditional desk seating but nooks for reading, circles for sharing and everywhere you gaze a celebration of reading and vocabulary. Teaching second graders for the last forty-five year has always been a passion for Barbara Bolduc.  Over four decades of children have passed through her room and if time permitted, Mrs. Bolduc would have a story to share about each of them and how they grew, emerged as a reader and shared their new learning with the others in the classroom.
    Barbara (Weddell) Bolduc started her educational career in the small school that used to stand at the location of the Ferrisburgh Historical Society today. She entered the corner school at five years old and the magical world of Doris Chamberlain, who in the eyes of a young Barbara, “simply did it all. Ms. Chamberlain was very young herself and started the stoves in the morning, taught all subjects and always found ways to not only teach the basics but involve the students in art and music. She was incredibly creative and passionate,” reminisced Barbara Bolduc. “If it were raining or cold, she would play the piano and we would sing. We would create, draw, paint and always there were projects for us to do.”
    While Barbara remembers growing up playing school with other neighborhood children, she did not originally intend to become a teacher. Greatly inspired by community member and Sunday school teacher Polly Sisters, Barbara would race to Sunday school to hear Mrs. Sisters read stories that were intriguing and had a moral lesson. “She also had this remarkable trick,” grinned Barbara, “as Mrs. Sisters would leave us at a point in the story called a Cliff Hanger and we had to come back to Sunday school the next week to see how it all came out.”
    Barbara grew up in Addison County and graduated from Vergennes Union High School in one of the very first classes of the new high school. Barbara set off for Castleton State College to major in Liberal Arts and to find where her career would be. During her freshman year she took classes in the educational field and went to schools in Castleton to work with children. The rest is simply history. At that point Barbara found her calling and would draw not only upon her own experiences and passion for children, but from those in the community who opened doorways in education for her during her student teaching and in her first years of school.
    Barbara came home from college on breaks and was encouraged by Ferrisburgh Central School principal Harold Leach to substitute teach as often as she could. Barbara was already familiar with most of the people in the building and not only found the teachers at Ferrisburgh welcoming and encouraging but raided their own supply closets to outfit her first classroom in Monkton in 1969 when she discovered she had no budget for supplies.  Sharing Memories of Isabelle Munnett and others Bolduc was delighted to join the staff in 1970 and told all who would listen she was going to teach for two years and start a family. The Bolduc family did happen and it now boasts seven grandchildren, but Barbara Bolduc never left her students and for forty-five years has been an anchor point in the lives of Addison County youth.
    Bolduc is a strong advocate of using phonics as a foundation for teaching reading and inspires a joy of reading in many different ways in her classroom. Reading aloud is one of her tried and true favorites and explains the joy that comes for the children when they read and share books together. As she begins the process of packing her room for the last time this year Bolduc has given to her students National Geographic Magazines for Children that explore exciting locations, wondrous animals and have the students raising their hands asking enthusiastically, “Can I read next?”
    Barbara’s classroom runs like a family and her approach to family extends to the school and community as well. Over the years there have been dozens of different special projects that her students have experienced, but some of Mrs. Bolduc’s favorite’s center around the land, community and growing plants together. Ferrisburgh Central School has lots of gardens all summer long and Mrs. B and her students have been responsible for planting butternut squash for use in the hot lunch programs. Each year the gardens get bigger and each year parents, farmers and students work together planting, composting, weeding and harvesting a crop that is as much about community as it is about fresh vegetables. Another special project began with reading stories about animals and grew into research projects, clay models, fabric pillows and a trip to the ECHO Center in Burlington. Supported by parent volunteers and the help of her own mother, Barbara never tires of her role as a teacher and is not really sure where forty-five years went. “Each day is different and special,” remarked Barbara Bolduc. “When you work with them and see their faces light up and see the change from looking at picture books to reading chapter books and curling up in a corner and basically ignoring me to read a book, the job never gets old. Just recently one of my students read his animal report in front of the class reading fluently and with pride. That is such a moment for him!”  
    Watching the educational pendulum swing back and forth for forty-five years has brought home to Barbara Bolduc some baselines on education that have never lost value. “Each child is our future,” remarked Mrs. Bolduc. “Shower them with hugs, compliments and teach them to be polite and kind and most importantly, no matter what they do in life to do it well.” As passionate as she was on day one in 1969 Barbara Bolduc still finds going into a classroom a mixture of a mission, a passion and  partnership where the room becomes a learning community and reading is the key to unlocking a lifelong passion for learning.  Showing this reporter a journal she compiled of events in her classroom, key words jump off the page along with the photos of smiling faces and growing children, “Hopes and Dreams for each child for the year, learning classroom routines, caring for each other and supplies, morning greeting, learning to play together, science and measuring our plants, reading together, special programs, sharing time, and always the word reading, reading, reading.”
    Arming each child with the gift of reading and ability to learn as a member of a community, Barbara Bolduc stands not only as a person of note because of her longevity in the field of teaching children, but because of her ability to make each day and year seem as fresh as the first. Whether it is learning about Maple Sugaring with Bill Scott and his high school students, making a bird feeder garden or sitting with a child in a circle as they share aloud for the first time, Barbara Bolduc has been a catalyst for growth and love for children for over four decades. In addition to earning her Masters from Trinity College, Barbara worked on curriculum in reading specialized for the K-2 students and enjoyed working with professionals from all over the district.
 And like those cliff hangers of Mrs. Sister’s Sunday school class we will have to tune in next fall to see if Mrs. Bolduc is volunteering, helping on projects or showering her seven grandchildren with her wonder and zest for life. So, tune in but for now join us at the Valley Voice to congratulate and celebrate all of the firsts that happened under her watch and all of the love that became a part of the community under the creative and passionate work of Mrs. Barbara Bolduc.

Printer Friendly

Top

Advertisements

Search our Archives