When I ask about this, I learn a new term often self-attributed by Decatur natives — ‘nose-blind.’ I take this to mean what happens when you spend so much time with an overwhelmingly odiferous presence that your brain just mercifully tunes that piece out and shows you the roses instead. But as I’ve heard many-a-hog farmer quip, “That’s just the smell of money.”

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When I turn to 7th-grade language arts teacher, Kiersten — an Albion native, and ask how she and her husband Jason, met, she tells me it was at work, “Here in Vandalia Schools,” though they’d both — along with Ashlyn — been at Greenville College at overlapping times. Jason laughs and says, “Honestly, I think the kids were on to us before we were on to us!” Just how this trio, connected to Vandalia Schools, and to one another, through an unlikely series of events came to be is, in and of itself, a fabulous story, but what’s even better is how much they bring to the plate, collectively, and individually.

 

Ashlyn shares that, for the longest time, she had absolutely no intention of becoming a teacher. In school, she experienced test anxiety and fought to tamp-down struggles with perfectionism — something high performing students frequently encounter. Still, the last thing she wanted to do was take on the pressures of being responsible for the academic success of young people. But here’s the thing, what her struggles enabled her to bring to the role of professional educator may have been the very best preparation she could have ever received. From those struggles, she tells us that she became more attuned to the needs of her students and more empathetic of young people who, like her, occasionally find themselves facing very similar obstructions to their own success. Having been there herself, Ashlyn is uniquely qualified as a guide to her 5th graders and others within her sphere of influence, not only as a teacher, but as a member of the Vandalia school community.

 

Both Kiersten and Jason find tremendous fulfillment in their roles as teachers and coaches. Jason coaches 7th grade girl’s basketball and assists with high school baseball while Kiersten eats, sleeps, and breathes junior high cheerleading on a very nearly year-round basis. Kiersten tells me that she has always loved school. “I was that kid who played school even when I wasn’t AT school.” She continues, “I loved being with my mom when she’d set-up her classroom in late summer or decorate for the different seasons. It’s what I always wanted to do, to BE, a teacher.”

 

Jason tells me that, every day, he feels blessed to be able to do what he loves, to work with over a hundred kids, and to put smiles on their faces. “I know every one of these kids comes from a different situation, and that some of those situations can be very hard, but if I can use our moments together to help them with math, coaching and life, in general, that’s really what motivates me; that’s what gets me up in the morning.” Again, empathy runs deep with this bunch, and if it’s one thing this family trio understands, it is situational difficulty, disappointment and profound loss. Equally so, the value of faith, family, and community in navigating those moments. They’ve seen it — up-close and personal — in their own lives. And they’ve felt the lift from, and the deeply supportive connection to, their colleagues; their Vandalia school family.

 

For Ashlyn, Kiersten, and Jason, each day is a new day and an opportunity to impact kids. But it is also an opportunity to play an important role in a world that can maybe use a bit more empathy and supportive connection. So, to whatever unseen force or series of unlikely events that brought this confluence of familial professional educators to our community, the students of Vandalia are surely grateful and, indeed, quite fortunate.