Portland Magazine
Alumni
June 9, 2021
By Astin Mills ’04
Illustration by Jason Sturgill
THERE ARE MANY moments of grace that were born from deep wells of despair this past year, which I refer to as The Longest Spring Break Eva. But what stands out the most is the moment when Mr. K rode his motorcycle over to our house to connect personally with Teslyn and me, her struggling mom.
Teslyn is my fifth-grader. She is a creative wonder. She also struggles to learn new things. Some would call her developmentally delayed. I call her a gift we are still learning to unwrap.
Most of Teslyn’s growth happens because of teachers who know how to keep trying. Eventually, something sticks. In kindergarten, Teslyn’s instructional aide used rhythm to model “one-to-one correspondence.” Two years later, I witnessed the same aide using the same rhythm method as the foundation to teach addition and subtraction. In fourth grade, just before we left the school building for The Longest Spring Break Eva, Teslyn had solidified her method for solving addition and subtraction. However, she did not have a foundation for multiplication and division problems.
When it became clear that we would not be going back into the school building for learning, the teachers had a matter of weeks to create something where once...nothing existed. Their pivot was astounding. And it was messy.
Teslyn no longer had her math curriculum provided by instructional aides who knew her level. She was thrust into the regular fourth-grade math curriculum, including fractions. Fractions are hard to understand if you don’t know multiplication and division.
And yet, Teslyn made progress in her own ways, and I learned to support her by standing on scaffolding that the teachers were creating.
Fast forward to December 2020. Teslyn was now in fifth grade. Her curriculum was still astounding, creative, and messy. As the person at home, standing on scaffolding I still did not fully understand, one day I realized that if she could pick up a foundational math skill—multiplication tables—fractions would be much easier.
I put the question to her team, and Teslyn’s primary teacher, Mr. K, responded. He had noticed that Teslyn really responds to music, and that gave him an idea.
A week later, Mr. K pulled up to our house on his motorcycle. He produced an iPod and speaker and taught Teslyn how to use them. I noticed a picture on the iPod’s background photo. It was a school district advertisement from a decade ago that featured Mr. K’s own children. I breathed, as I realized just how much wisdom and experience had informed this moment. Mr. K had raised his own children through this school district, and he has been doing this sacred work for a long time.
The iPod contained songs about multiplication that use repetition and rhythm to encourage memorization. Mr. K asked Teslyn to listen to the music and sing along. He suggested that she move her body while listening—maybe a rhythmic exercise like jumping jacks or writing with chalk—so that the “motor muscle memory” of those multiplication tables could be absorbed.
Over the next month, Teslyn followed Mr. K’s recommendations. She exploded in her multiplication-table awareness. And then she exploded in her fluency with fractions.
And I am amazed. New Testament amazed. The New Testament writers used the word “amazed” to signal that something from the Divine was breaking open into the world. In Mr. K’s teaching moment, the Divine broke open into my life, and I saw the gifts already present inside my daughter and the power of teachers to build upon them.
Teslyn will continue to have some developmental delays. But now, Mom knows a secret: she is already amazing. Her gifts are already inside her. The wisdom and experience of teachers will continue to build on the foundation she already has. Amazing.
Astin Mills ’04 was a nursing/Spanish major at UP, who benefited from the Air Force ROTC program. She served four years. She wants to express gratitude to those doing equity work at UP.
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