Ina Van Duyn “Grandma Manners,”  retired Mohawk Trails and Cherry Tree elementary school kindergarten teacher

What motivated you to start teaching? 

 I grew up in Newcastle, and when I was a senior, I took a class called exploratory teaching. I was assigned to a kindergarten teacher at one of the elementary schools. I went in every day, and the more that I was there, the more I thought this is what I want. And so I never varied from that. I taught 32 years, always in kindergarten, and as a joke, I always said, “And I never made it to first grade, so don’t talk to me about slow learners.”

Have you received any awards during your career?

I was Carmel’s teacher of the year and I was the runner-up for the top 10 teachers in the state. I felt very grateful about that. 

How do you build strong connections with your students? 

I always told my kids, “Once my kids, always my kids.” And I really did mean that because some years I would write to the kids in the middle of the summer or toward the end of summer talking about how good the kindergarten had been, and I would be still thinking about them when they would be in first grade. Later on as they went through school, if I saw that they had an honor or they’d been elected to an office or something. But many years later, I would write to them when they graduated from high school. When I said, “Once my kids, always my kids,” I really meant it. I loved my kids. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have kids that were problems or that there weren’t times that were hard, but I truly, truly loved teaching.  

If you could give one piece of advice to a new teacher, what would it be? 

 If you love this, stay with it because you’ll find great success in it. If not, it’ll be the hardest job in the world. The other thing I think is to be patient. Do what the class needs the year that you have them.

Is there anything else that you’d like to add? 

Kelly Meyer was in my kindergarten (class). But the second to last year that I taught at Mohawk Trails, the principal came down and he said, I have someone in my office that says you were her kindergarten teacher. So I went down and I went, “Oh my gosh, Kelly Meyer, what are you doing here?” And she said, “Well, I think I’m going to be teaching here.”

Anyway, she said, “Boy, I want to tell you something. You were always my favorite teacher, and do you know why?”  And I said, “I have no idea.” She said “My mother had made me get my hair cut and I thought I looked like a boy.” I don’t know why, but I asked her, “Do you still have some of your hair?” She said, yes, and I said, “Put it in a plastic bag and bring it to school and we’ll put it on a board. It is something important that happened to you.” Now, I remember none of that.

So here’s this woman, who probably at that point was 30 years old, who remembered. She said, “I only went to Mohawk Trails one year, but I knew I wanted to be a teacher like you.” 

Kelly Meyer, first grade teacher at Mohawk Trails

Where have you taught? 

I’ve been teaching for 28 years. I taught in Minnesota for two years, and then the rest of my time was spent between Cherry Tree and Mohawk Trails. 

What motivated you to start your career in teaching? 

Mrs. Van Duyn. I had her as a kindergarten teacher, and she had a huge impact on me. I went through a phase of having long hair and my mom cut it really short because it was thick and hard to manage and I was very upset. Mrs. Van Duyn had me bring the ponytail in, and she hung it on the share board and made a big deal out about how pretty I looked either way. She doesn’t even remember that story, but she’s had a huge impact in my life from that point on. 

What’s the most important thing you think she’s taught you about life itself?

She taught me how to make the kids feel loved. To this day I have a student in my class that’s really struggling in his family life, and Ina comes once a month. And of course, like every day he comes in, I hug him and ask how his day is, but he’s having a really rough day. He’ll say, “When’s Grandma Manners coming back?”

We’ll go to breakfast together and people will say things like, “Oh my gosh, I had you in kindergarten,” and they remember stories and stuff about her. I hope when I retire that people will be like that with me, and I think I picked that up from her. 

How does it feel knowing that you’re carrying on her legacy in education? 

Obviously there’s going to be a day when she’s not gonna be here, but I just think that having her come in the classroom and be a leader to our kids has been huge.

When you get 100 kids in front of her, she just has a calming presence, and when they’re there, they know, we need to be respectful, we need to be quiet, she’s going to teach us something. And it’s amazing. How does she do that?  There’s 100 squirrely kids in front of her and they all go quiet. It’s pretty special. 

I’m excited to hopefully be able to carry that tradition on and go into other people’s classrooms like she’s done. 

What do you hope your own students will say one day about you? 

I hope that they say I was kind, compassionate, loving, and that they were reminded of Grandma Manners when they thought of me. 

Ellen Rozmaryn, former student at Mohawk Trails and sophomore

What qualities did your favorite elementary school teachers have that made them special?

I had a favorite teacher that was a librarian for almost all of my years of elementary school. I think one of the biggest things for me is that they really pushed me and challenged me because our librarian did help me do a lot of little side research projects just for fun. That really fostered my love of learning instead of just doing the bare minimum, and they really tried to form personal relationships with me and my family. 

How have your teachers in your early life impacted how you grew as a person?

That same librarian I talked about, even after I left elementary school. This was during COVID times, and she sent me this letter, and then after that, she and I were actually writing letters back and forth for a pretty long time through COVID. It was really inspirational and she really gave me a lot of good advice, and now I’ve been able to help her as she’s been writing a book and helping her edit her book. It speaks to character growth and forming good relationships and learning from people. 

 I love to talk to a lot of my teachers, especially those that are older, because they love to talk about their lives and what they’ve done, and that’s really interesting. 

How do you think that teachers in elementary school have a different kind of impact on students compared to later grades? 

One of the things one of my middle school teachers said to me that I think really is true is that middle school and elementary school teachers teach students, but high school teachers teach subjects. I think there’s really a big difference between that level of trying to form a relationship with students at a younger age.

In elementary school, you go to school and you spend your entire day in one class with one teacher. Elementary school teachers have an insanely unique talent for being there and supporting students on a very unique but also one-on-one basis.