Teacher Appreciation Week: Jane Simchak

 

Jane Simchak has served as an English teacher for the Middle and Lower schools for more than 20 years. Ms. Simchak originally joined NCS as a substitute teacher and quickly earned a permanent position, establishing herself as a favorite among students not only for her winsome personality but also her style of teaching, which she describes as: "Ask students to stretch their minds, and they will invariably respond with interest and enthusiasm." Ms. Simchak holds the Angus Dun Chair in English, and she has degrees from Wheaton College and the University of Virginia.

 

Following are remarks that English department chair Paige Blumer '01 made at a May 5 reception to honor NCS's retiring faculty and staff:

 

 

"When I ask, and sometimes even when I don't, older students who have had 'Sim' as a teacher are eager to share with me what they remember of being in her classroom. Some recall the first and last time they used a selection from her 'Forbidden Word' list. Some recall every lovingly and tediously rendered prairie image from Willa Cather's My Antonia.

 

"Some remember thinking in her class for the first time, 'Oh, I see how my ideas fit into an argument.' Some remember her patient sense of humor and what they believe her profound love of Hello Kitty. The seniors in my war-literature class tell me, with incongruous glee as I bravely set down Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est in front of them, 'Oh, we read this in 6th grade. It's about mustard gas.' What they all remember, however, is feeling like they really learned from Jane—that they understood themselves, their role in the world, and the study of English better because they have known her.

 

"I now think of the time I've known Jane as interesting in stages. I've been a toddler trying to get her son to play at my party house. I've been a young teacher at the dawn of my career searching for opportunities and mentorship and finding her. And I've been her worshipful and grateful colleague and buddy for a decade. But the period I think of most these days as I try to comprehend the scope of what Jane has accomplished in and given to this institution is the one in 2007, right after Jane got me an interview here for an interim 7th-grade teaching position. I think of it because it is when I truly began to understand what it is that makes Jane a superlative and memorable teacher.

 

"Like she does with every one of her students, Jane advocated for me, mentored me and made time for me well beyond what she was required to do. And, in the same way her students recognize her influence deep in the foundation of what they are as learners and writers, I recognize that anything that's worthwhile in me as an educator I owe in large part to Jane's investment in me. All this to say, Jane's spirit and attitude toward her work is the very quintessence of this place and its continued success. She has taught me through her example that the small things we teach kids are in service of something larger. As she mentored me I witnessed firsthand what a profound and fantastic teacher she is, because regardless of subject matter or stage of life of her students, her mission is the same: She empowers young women to use their voices confidently and in a most effective way and to give them the tools to do the same someday for others.

 

"While I struggle for personal reasons to imagine NCS without Jane, running into Jane in the hallway or dropping by her classroom on my way to a meeting is, without hyperbole, one of the greatest small pleasures I can account for in my day. I recognize the depth of her legacy as proof of the impossibility of forever truly leaving. Jane's legacy is ingrained in the very fabric of what we do as an English department. Her lessons are the jealously burdened memory of nearly all our students, and she has inspired and mentored a new generation of teachers to carry on those values with which she is so closely associated.

 

"I hope that, if nothing else, I can at least tell you, Jane, that what you have done all of these years really mattered. All the grading and the extra work and the hard conversations, it will continue to matter for generations because the gifts you have given us, your students, are ones we couldn't possibly think to keep to ourselves. Thank you, Jane."