An Interview with Susan Van Kirk by E. B. Davis

  

When Susan Van Kirk drove into little Monmouth, Illinois, in 1968—straight out of college, with her teaching degree in hand—she thought she was ready to teach English and speech to high school students. She didn't realize she would both teach and be taught by a town, a school, and the students who entered her life. A veteran of forty-four years of public high school and college teaching, Van Kirk will take you on a passionate and unforgettable journey through one teaching life. Meet her students and experience the events that molded a rookie teacher into a veteran. This montage of stories covers the years 1968 to 2008; they describe her early fears about classroom discipline, plots to overthrow "the rookie," handling drug overdoses, the devastating first student death, and a challenge to a major Kurt Vonnegut book in her classroom.

Mr. Vonnegut and Me (And Other Incredible Tales from a Teaching Life) is a second edition, and Van Kirk has added a new introduction plus updated material about where the students from the stories are now. These fifteen stories are incredible, inspiring, and filled with what makes us human.

Amazon.com

 

I’ve read all of Susan’s books, except Mr. Vonnegut And Me. Why? I guess I’m not much of a nonfiction reader, and that’s what surprised me. I started to read slowly and ended up being engrossed by her stories. For me, the times in which she taught were my history. Her first year of teaching was 1968, the year I entered 8^th grade, so when I got to high school, I might have had Mrs. Van Kirk as a teacher had I lived in Monmouth, IL.

Susan covers topics she dealt with while teaching: sexism, diversity, racism, classroom discipline, family backgrounds, pregnancy, politics, etc. We learn how much these affected her teaching and how they impacted her students.

 

This 2026 release allowed Susan to update her stories and follow her students after they left the high school, which I found very interesting, like seeing the before and after.

                                                                                                                                   E. B. Davis

 

Did retirement prompt you to reflect on your teaching, resulting in the book?  When was the book first published?

My memoir was first published as The Education of a Teacher (Including Dirty Books and Pointed Looks) in 2010. It was the first book I ever wrote, and the thought that I could write a book came about through a college professor and a college student. I was getting my master’s degree at University of Illinois, and I took a class called “reflective teaching.” The purpose was to reflect on how my values and beliefs affected the way I taught. The professor wrote on one of my papers, “You have a wonderful voice, and this story is incredible. Have you ever considered writing a book?” No, I hadn’t. Then, one of my college students said the same thing, only he was referring to an inspiring story I’d told about why teaching was an amazing profession. He suggested I write it so people who wanted to teach could read it. I did. And a magazine picked it up immediately and published it. I thought to myself, “I’ve taught for four decades and I could write a memoir that might explain what it’s like to teach.” I chose fifteen stories that were funny, sad, poignant, and thought-provoking. That became this book.

 

Is Monmouth, IL, the prototype of Endurance, the town in your first series? Why is it called “The Maple City?”

 People do, indeed, see aspects of both Monmouth and my home town, Galesburg, in my Endurance series. History is ubiquitous here. The Underground Railroad, a Lincoln-Douglas debate, Beecher Chapel (named for the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe), the birthplace of Wyatt Earp, and the extradition hearing of the Mormon leader, Joseph Smith, were all parts of our area history. My Endurance series has a lot of Midwest history as part of the setting. Monmouth is called the Maple City because it was founded in 1831, and maple trees lined the streets of the town. Western Stoneware, our internationally-known pottery company, used a maple leaf in its logo.

 

Did your kids have trouble due to your teaching at their school? How about grading their papers?

 I taught my three children two years in a row. Fortunately, they were excellent students. We had a deal. If they had problems or concerns with other teachers, they solved those problems themselves. If they heard rumors or gossip, they didn’t tell me. They did their own homework, and I imagine they occasionally heard thoughts about me from other students in my classes. But overall, those were smooth years. It was more difficult having the children of my friends.

 

In deciding which stories to include in the book, you asked yourself which students changed your teaching and you. How do you think you changed your students, such as John Critser?

This is a long answer! John’s story, “War and Remembrance,” was the first one I wrote that was published by Teacher Magazine. It illustrates the theme of the book: the profession of teaching puts you in a position to change students’ lives, hopefully for the better. John and I had a conversation after school that I didn’t remember until twenty years later when he told me about it at a reunion. He was a junior in high school trying to decide what to do about enlisting during the Vietnam War years. He would have a number in the draft lottery, and he was having moral concerns about killing people. On the other hand, he felt he should do his duty to his country. He stopped in to see me after school on a day when I’d received a telegram that a close friend from college had been killed in that war. I was not the usual “Ms. Van Kirk” who stayed as neutral as possible in class discussions about current affairs. (I’d always encouraged my students to think for themselves and back up their beliefs with logical arguments and evidence.) But that day after school, I was a mess. I didn’t remember, years later, our conversation. But he did. And more than that, he remembered how that death affected me. The next year, he made a decision to go to college, hope not to have his number called, and if it were, to become a conscientious objector. As it turned out, his number was not called before the war ended, and he went on to become a world-renowned research scientist, and, unlike me, remembered that conversation with his weeping teacher. He told me at his twentieth reunion that but for our conversation he might have enlisted, died in that war and never married, had children, or done life-saving research. For many years, we met for coffee when he came back to visit his mother. From him I learned that sometimes you change your students’ lives by tears rather than by Shakespeare.

What quality drew the troubled girls to you? Did they see you as a strong single mother or as a teacher they could trust?

Both of these girls, names changed, came to my house to talk to me over Christmas break. They had some serious problems and felt they couldn’t talk with their parents about them. One had recently discovered she was pregnant, and the other stated she was being abused by a foster parent. At the time, I was going through a divorce, and they’d silently watched as I’d lost weight, been preoccupied, and seemed sad. I think they believed I’d understand their very serious problems. I imagine they saw me as trustworthy and someone juggling a lot in my life. Their stories illustrate yet another moral dilemma. As a teacher, I couldn’t tell them what to do. I was legally required by the abuse situation to turn it in to child protective services. I did. The other was a situation where it was up to the student and her parents to make a decision about her pregnancy. I convinced her to talk with her parents, and we used role-playing to decide how she’d do this. Their stories illustrate some of the moral dilemmas teachers face when dealing with teenagers.

 

Trying to maintain discipline in the classroom led to nightmares for you. Did this problem get better with time and experience?

Absolutely it did. When you see my photo on the book cover, I was twenty-two. It was my second year of teaching, and my students were 17 or 18. Maintaining discipline was a real learning curve. Eventually, I was able to balance a sense of humor with definite rules and outcomes. I was never a friend to my students. I respected them, and I would say they respected me. Over the years, I learned that balance. This is why people are a much better teachers as time goes by. Experience really makes a difference.

 

Was your personal life affected by the expectation of professional behavior and decorum outside of school? 

It definitely was in a small town, especially when I first started teaching. I couldn’t walk into a bar, and if I went out to a restaurant with friends and had a drink, it was all right. But if students were working there, they might see me, and it would be discussed with their friends. Because I was married, I didn’t have to worry about the dating game and students talking. But teachers back then were held to a higher standard. There was a moral turpitude clause in our contracts, and being picked up for a DUI would definitely end a career.

 

When one set of parents tried to censor the reading of Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, I wondered about their daughter. You didn’t influence her selection of the book. You allowed her to pick another book. You never knew how she felt about the book. Do you know what happened to her?

No, I don’t. Her parents still live in town, and I see them occasionally. Their daughter left town and has a life somewhere. I believe she got caught up in that situation and possibly lied, telling her parents she was required to read the book for my class. She wasn’t. I’m certainly not naïve enough to believe teenagers always tell the truth when they might get into trouble. It was a book she selected. But the parents really blew it all up and went to the principal, superintendent, the media, the school board, and didn’t talk to me. I would have given her a different book. But it was way-out crazy by the time it all ended after six weeks. And one of my children was in the class, so she was his friend. Now that was a difficult line to manage. It was a textbook case of a book challenge.

How did you connect to those featured students to find out how they led their lives?

I knew a student in town who knew “where all the bodies were.” I found many of them via social media, but if I couldn’t, she helped me find some of them. A few had kept in touch with me. One had passed away last year, and that was a blow. I knew the city where he lived and came upon his obituary. Mostly, the internet was very helpful. I don’t always say that! It was amazing to reconnect with them and hear how their lives had gone. They are doing incredible things, and they came from such a tiny town. Midwesterners from small towns are often known for their kindness. They sure showed me that continued to be true.

 

Why is it that some people determine their futures and others drift without direction? Is it family background, talent, or personality?

Good grief, Elaine. If I knew the answer to this question, I’d bottle it and make millions. It’s a combination of all of those things plus a bit of luck along the way. One of my children went to college not knowing what he wanted to do. He thought about teaching, but I knew that wasn’t for him. He drifted in that direction. But finally, through classes and reflection, he ended up in a job that was perfect for his personality. In his case, college exposed him to a lot of possibilities, and he was open to testing it all out. So, sure, it’s those items you listed. But never discount luck. I often enjoy going back to reunions of my former students because I enjoy hearing what happened to them after school.

 

Would you change anything in your career and/or student interactions if you could?

I was very fortunate. I could usually find positive qualities in most of the students I taught. Teaching was the perfect vocation for me. I wish I could have gone back to graduate school before I had a family. But in those days, the social pressure was to marry and have children. And once I became a single mother, going back to school was impossible. On the other hand, graduate school after all that experience made my understanding of education discussions richer. So, who knows? I wouldn’t exchange those years for anything.

Taking Time for some Nonfiction by Tammy Euliano

 

I love reading mysteries and thrillers with the occasional romance thrown in around Christmas (Hallmark Channel knew what it was doing). But sometimes it feels a bit like a guilty pleasure and I need to give my brain more nourishment, or alternative nourishment. Historical fiction can be fun, especially if the author explains where he deviated from fact. Steve Berry does this exceptionally well. In addition, though, I read non-fiction interspersed with my fiction. Here are some recent reads I found compelling:

Think, Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant. With research and stories, he encourages us to rethink our opinions, to ask others about theirs out of genuine interest in how they see the world, and to see disagreement not as a threat to our egos, but an opportunity to learn. Grant urges us to gravitate toward those who challenge our thought process rather than those who echo our own opinions.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill
Gates. I read this in part because I’ve always been a bit of a climate change denier and wanted to hear the other side. The projects underway and the ideas for future solutions are compelling, if only one side of the story.

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives by Peter Diamandis. My son recommended this to give me ideas for my writing about emerging technologies I might incorporate. It’s really fascinating how technology accelerates when all the necessary building blocks become available.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson. What a fascinating book about an amazing woman and the politics that invade science. I love the way Isaacson writes, but this topic kept my interest, and some of the technology is in my work-in-progress.

No list of my non-fiction books recommendations would be complete without mentioning my all-time favorite, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It’s really just what the title says. A physician and survivor of Auschwitz, Frankl was fascinated by what drove some of his co-prisoners to survive, while others succumbed. He attributed most of it to finding meaning in life, and developed a whole area of psychology and treatment (logotherapy) around the theory. It’s an interesting read, and the second half, outside of Auschwitz, is a great reminder to find meaning every day.

I regret that as I read these books and find them fascinating and compelling, I no longer retain many of the facts. I might take notes, but then never read them. I chalk it up to my brain being full. If only I could dump the preamble to the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address from my memory to make room for more interesting information.

I’d love some recommendations for more non-fiction books!

~Tammy Euliano

Storytelling style: Blending fiction, nonfiction techniques and skills

By day, I edit manuscripts about geology for scientific and general public audiences.

By night and weekend, I write.

I write crime fiction, of course. But I also write nonfiction for a local magazine that showcases the best of our area—businesses, people, events, nature, culture, and more. I’ve been writing for this magazine for more than a decade, but in recent years, I’ve noticed something: As I grow more skilled as a writer, the style I bring to nonfiction crosses over into my fiction and vice versa.

I felt this difference in nonfiction storytelling in an article I wrote for the Winter 2011 issue of the magazine, “An Affair of the Heart and Feather,” about the oldest pair of nesting bald eagles at a local lake. Take, for example, these excerpts:

“For more than two decades, an avian love story has played out in the skies over Clinton Lake.”

“In the words of scientists, mom and dad became the first historically documented pair of bald eagles to successfully raise young since the turn of the century in Kansas. For the rest of us non-scientists, they’re known as the first nesting pair of bald eagles to settle in our state.”

“Without his mate, the full burden of childcare fell squarely on the male.”

As a younger writer, I might not have chosen to see “an avian love story” in such human terms. I wouldn’t have used the words “mom and dad” to refer to eagle pairs or “burden of childcare” to describe an eagle taking care of its young.

Though limited to the facts and interviews I’d gathered, my writing felt lighter, looser. I felt free to experiment with different word choices, a more carefree style, and grammatical constructions that were not necessarily strictly grammatical to emphasize interesting details or brighten a dense topic. I credit fiction writing with bringing me to this richer approach to nonfiction.

On the flip side, my nonfiction work gives me insight into people and places in a way that sitting all day in an office does not. In one of my favorite stories of the past few years, I profiled Thomas Burns, a commercial fisherman and self-taught naturalist who spent years studying the Kansas River—known as the Kaw to those of us in Northeast Kansas—and the big catfish that inhabit it. Through archives of his first-person accounts of his life and interviews with family and friends, I pieced together a picture of a man who loved the river, loved fishing, and, for much of his commercial fishing career, ran afoul of Kansas laws that banned the particular type of net he and most commercial fishermen used at the time. Evading the law became a game for him.

“He had five or six boats on the river, so they didn’t know for sure which boat he was going to be at,” his daughter told me. “You could say he was just a little on the ornery side.”

Open publication

Later, the same wildlife officials who tried to curb his illegal fishing turned to him for help when they wanted to understand more about his fishing methods and the river that played such a large role in his life and our community.

As a crime fiction writer, this story of the complicated relationship between Burns and law enforcement fascinated me and provided another lesson for fiction writing: Good versus evil is a false dichotomy. The best, most interesting characters have layers—some good, some bad, some ornery. Shades of gray give a story depth.

Together, nonfiction and fiction projects have made me a stronger writer, a better storyteller. I embrace each new magazine assignment and each new crime fiction story as an opportunity to sharpen my skills and grow as a writer.