A Love for Learning
“If we succeed in giving the love of learning, the learning itself is sure to follow.”
—-John Lubbock
Each day brings with it opportunities to learn, no matter the learner's age. Some of these lessons are mastered independently through experiences, discovery, and reflection, while others are taught directly or indirectly by parents, adults, coaches, or mentors. There are concepts that are grasped that come out of necessity, with other bits of knowledge learned as a result of curiosity and desire. Some examples include lessons being taught because of societal and curricular expectations. Whatever the skills or concepts may be, mastering them becomes easier and more natural when a love of learning exists. As teachers, we constantly strive to ignite a passion and joy for learning for each of our students. For some students, this love is already at a high level. Wattles Park first-grade teacher, Marlis Campbell, developed an excitement for learning early on in her life. Perhaps this is what eventually led her to a career as a teacher.
Marlis, a lifelong resident of Michigan, packed her bags often growing up as her family moved more than once from one side of the state to another. “I was born in Flint, Michigan in 1972, and lived there until I was two years old,” Marlis explains. “My dad, Dale, worked as a social worker for the State. He was transferred to Traverse City for two years, and then he was relocated back to Flint.” A few years after returning to Flint, Marlis’ dad transitioned again to a new job, and her family moved to East Lansing, where she would spend the majority of the rest of her childhood. Marlis is the oldest of three children for Dale and her mother, Tonya. Elizabeth was born two years after Marlis, and Megan five years after Elizabeth.
It seemed that Marlis was immersed in opportunities to grow and learn from as far back as she can remember. She reflects on some of her childhood memories. “I attended preschool after we moved back to Flint, and started Kindergarten when we moved to East Lansing just two days into the school year” School provided Marlis with ample opportunities to learn and grow, something she enjoyed very much, but she would be blessed with these same kinds of experiences beyond the classroom. Marlis gives details about childhood recollections outside of school. “I remember having fun as a child, playing with neighborhood kids at the park and riding my bike all around my community. I was also a Girl Scout during my elementary and middle school years.” Tonya was a stay-at-home mom and volunteered as Marlis’s Brownie troop leader. Being a Girl Scout provided Marlis with many fond memories. “I loved outdoor excursions as a Girl Scout, earning badges while attending camp every summer.” The joy that Marlis experienced as a Girl Scout has carried over through her adult life. She and her family have tent-camped through the years. Now that her children are adults, she and her husband, Craig, continue camping but have scaled back a bit, making the switch from tent to cabin. Surprisingly, as a lifelong Michigan resident and being someone who loves the outdoors, Marlis has never been to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She will have her first opportunity to explore the UP with Craig this summer on a camping trip they are planning in Copper Harbor, Au Train, and Ontanogan.
The knowledge that Marlis gained and the skill set she developed through exploring her surroundings as a child, along with the lessons taught to her through Girl Scouts, helped to supplement what she would learn in school, where she was in her element. Marlis gives details about her school experience. “I attended Central Elementary, in East Lansing, Kindergarten through fifth grade. This was a neighborhood school that I walked to each day. From there, I went to Hannah Middle School. I graduated from East Lansing High School in 1990.” Marlis has vivid memories of early on in school, starting with kindergarten. “I loved school from the first day. I remember thinking that my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Berry, was the best. One specific recollection from Kindergarten involved being able to introduce the letter M. Each letter was introduced by a student whose name began with that letter. I was the only student whose name started with an M.”
Marlis’s passion for school picked up right where it left off when returning to first grade after summer vacation. She loved her new teacher, Mrs. Mock, just as much as she loved Mrs. Berry. Marlis and her parents were invited to come in and set up the fish tank in Mrs. Mock’s classroom at the start of the school year, a treat Marlis will likely never forget. As an adult, one of Marlis’s favorite pastimes is reading. She talks about how her passion as a reader was ignited when she was in fourth grade. “I enjoyed reading from the time I learned how to read, but it was my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Andrews, who really was responsible for me falling in love with reading. The entire back wall of her classroom was devoted to celebrating books. It was an ocean of reading decorated with fish. Each time a student read a new book, the title of the book and the student’s name was printed on a fish and then the fish was added to the ocean on the wall.”
Elementary school was perhaps the highlight of Marlis’s public education experience. Learning to read brings with it confidence for many students, with the independence it creates in learning information and enjoying stories. Reading brought joy to Marlis and seemed to feed her desire to learn. The excitement of the elementary years for Marlis carried over to sixth grade through high school graduation, but there was a bump in the road that gave Marlis her first experience of struggle as a student. She reflects on her middle and high school experience. “When I was sixteen, I spent six months of my sophomore year attending Creston High School in Grand Rapids. Mom and Dad had recently divorced, and my sisters and I moved to Grand Rapids with Mom. This was a culture shock for me. East Lansing was a school that had predominately wealthy students with many MSU professors sending their kids there. Creston was more of an inner-city high school. My school experience in East Lansing was that the majority of students learned with ease. This was not the case at Creston. The disparity in how students learned from one school to another was a surprise for me.”
Marlis struggled to acclimate to her new school and home in Grand Rapids. The divorce, being away from their dad, and living in and attending a school in a new city seemed to cause conflict with Marlis and her sisters. Marlis explains. “My sisters and I were not getting along. Mom decided to send me back to East Lansing to live with Dad. My emotions were mixed. I felt somewhat abandoned by my Mom, but I was also happy to go back to my friends in East Lansing.”
Being raised in a college town made a huge impact on Marlis’s childhood. She explains. “Growing up in a college town gave me opportunities for watching Big Ten sports live and provided a beautiful campus for me to explore. I had peers in my classes from all over the world because their parents were visiting professors at MSU. Living near campus provided opportunities to attend to art exhibits, concerts, and film nights.”
Marlis spent less than a year in Grand Rapids, but the struggles that she experienced set her back academically when she returned to East Lansing High School. It took her some time to get back to speed with her studies.
The blip in her Kindergarten through high school senior journey was not enough to take away her joy for school. Marlis discusses some of the highlights of her high school years. “I loved playing the clarinet while participating in marching band and concert band in high school. I also played soccer for two years. Another part of my experience as a teenager involved working part-time at a local grocery store as soon as I turned sixteen, continuing through my freshman year of college.”
Marlis realized that, as a high school student, she wanted to continue her education. She reflects on her first stint as a college student. “I knew early on that I would go to college. Friends and adults had always told me that I should be a teacher, but I wasn’t interested in this at that time. I wanted a career as a lawyer. I wanted to help hearing-impaired individuals. During my freshman year of college, I lived at home and went to Lansing Community College to save money.” Growing up in the shadows of campus, Marlis wanted to attend Michigan State University, but her grades were not good enough. “I transferred to Western Michigan University for my sophomore year and declared a major in sociology with criminal justice, graduating in 1994 with my BA degree.”
Marlis was unable to land a job in her field immediately and spent a year working at Target. Her supervisor there wanted her to train for a management position, but Marlis continued to search for a job related to sociology and criminal justice. She goes into detail about her first career. “After about a year of job hunting, I was hired at Lakeside Residential Treatment Center in 1995. I worked the PM shift from two to ten and was assigned to the restrictive unit where kids who needed more of a lock-down living situation were housed.” Marlis appreciated working at the treatment center, but it wasn’t always easy. “I enjoyed my time there. There was a lot of trauma to deal wit,h and after a while, I began to burn out. These children had social and academic difficulties.” Marlis worked for Lakeside Residential for about a decade and decided it was time to shift gears. She still wanted to help children but desired to make a difference earlier in their lives. Maybe she could help younger students avoid some of the decisions that the teens in the treatment center had made. She wanted to be an elementary school teacher.
While working at Lakeside Residential, Marlis met her future husband. She reflects on this chapter in her life. “Craig and I worked together at Lakeside Residential. We became acquainted and started dating in 1996. Our firstborn, Hannah, was born in 1997, and Craig and I were married in 1998. Our second child, Nathan, was born two years later.” Marlis began the shift to her second career in 2000. “After Nathan was born, I started at Western Michigan University (WMU), taking courses to get my teaching degree,” Marlis recalls. “I continued working while going to school, opening a licensed family daycare at home, and taking night and weekend classes. I graduated from WMU in 2005 with a teaching degree and an elementary teaching endorsement.”
The fall after graduating from WMU, Marlis began her teaching journey. She talks about this process. “My first teaching job was with Gull Lake Community Schools. I taught half days in a Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) classroom, working with preschool children. To help supplement our income, I also tutored with Sylvan Learning Center.” As Marlis split her work day between Gull Lake and Sylvan Learning Center, she continued to search for a full-time teaching position. “I taught at Gull Lake for two years before getting a full-time job with Head Start of Kalamazoo County. After three years with Head Start, I was hired as a fifth-grade teacher for Woodward Elementary in Kalamazoo.”
Teaching fifth grade left Marlis feeling like she was out of her element. She missed working with preschool children and moved school districts again, taking a job as a GSRP teacher in Benton Harbor. She was back doing what she loved as a teacher. She was happy working in Benton Harbor, but the long daily commute from her home in Kalamazoo was something she could do without. A job opening would bring her to Harper Creek a few years later. “A friend of mine told me about a posting for a GSRP teacher at Beadle Lake Elementary. I applied, interviewed, and was offered the job. It seemed too good to pass up. I was still able to continue teaching pre-school, and my daily commute would be cut in half. I started the 2015 school year in the GRSP classroom at Beadle Lake.” It seemed as if things had finally fallen into place for Marlis in her second career, but another change was on the horizon. “Community Unlimited, an organization that works to provide enriching opportunities for children and their families, took over GSRP programming in 2018. I could have stayed with GSRP as an employee for Community Unlimited but would have taken a pay cut. Harper Creek administration assured me I would retain a teaching job as an employee with them, but I was uncertain of what I would be teaching. Even though I wasn’t sure what I would teach the following school year, I decided to stay.”
Marlis waited patiently during the summer of 2018 to find out what her teaching assignment would be for the upcoming school year. She desperately wanted to continue working in a lower elementary classroom, but with her certification, she understood that teaching in the upper elementary or middle school was a possibility. Marlis reflects on the relief of knowing what she would be teaching. “ Finally, I received a call from Brent Swan a week before teachers were supposed to report to work, letting me know that I was coming to Wattles to teach first grade.” First grade was a bit of an adjustment for Marlis, but it seems to have worked out for her. “I like first grade. My early childhood background has helped me as a first-grade teacher. Sometimes, it can be overwhelming. There is so much change and growth for students in first grade, physically and academically. It is a huge year for students to become readers.” With the joy that Marlis finds with reading, perhaps being in a first-grade classroom is the perfect fit for her as a teacher.
Marlis has been a beneficiary of the Grow Your Own Grant program through Harper Creek, which provides free tuition at WMU for paraprofessional staff to earn a teaching certificate and for teachers to earn a graduate degree. She talks about this opportunity. “I am a lifelong learner and am always looking for opportunities to learn as a teacher. I was so excited when the Grow Your Own Grant opportunity became available. I never thought that I would be able to get a Master's Degree. I am working towards a degree in Teaching English to Students of other Languages.” Marlis also went through the LETRS training a few years ago, which emphasizes how to teach reading. This training has helped her to look at reading instruction through a different lens. “LETRS has helped me to understand the science of teaching reading.”
Teaching is not always easy. There are plans that teachers follow and procedures that align with the guidelines for best practices, but things don’t always follow the script. Still, the rewards of teaching far outweigh the occasional negative experiences that are a part of the job. Marlis summarizes the rewards that she has enjoyed. “Seeing growth in children and the light bulb moments when they are excited about learning is very satisfying. I also love the classroom community that we build each year as a group.” With this being her second career, Marlis is not necessarily on the same timeline for retirement as her peers. She imagines herself teaching for at least another ten years.
Marlis has experienced the spectrum when it comes to working with our youth. Mentoring struggling teens during her first career most likely equipped her with some of the skills that she has used as a preschool and first-grade teacher. Perhaps how her time working with teenagers has helped her most in her current job is that it has provided the motivation to do everything she can so that her current students don’t find themselves in the same situation as the teens she worked with years ago. A variety of skills and experiences have guided Marlis in the day-to-day interactions she has had with our youth as a mentor and a teacher, with her love for laying the foundation.