TEACHER'S CORNER: AFTER DAUGHTER LEAVES, MOTHER BECOMES TEACHER

NEW HAMBURG -- Debbi Bollinger missed her daughter, Courtney, after she left for college and wanted to find another way to interact with children.

So she started teaching at Kelso C-7 school in New Hamburg. Three days a week, she teaches art classes at the school.

Bollinger taught art classes for a year after college but quit in 1975 to stay home with her daughter. During the past 20 years, she substituted and worked temporarily in several different districts.

"Children keep you young at heart and mind," Bollinger said. "When you're around children there is always something interesting happening."

Her classroom experiences have been interesting and exciting so far this year. "It would be hard to pick out just one memorable experience," she said. "When you are around children, not a day goes by that something interesting or humorous doesn't happen."

One of the biggest and most creative art projects fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade students completed was Noah's Ark.

"I asked them to be creative making their animals and that they were," Bollinger said. "We had a plaid hippo, a multi-colored zebra, a Kelly green and brown alligator, a gold giraffe with hot pink spots and many more brightly hued animals."

Other successful projects Bollinger has taught were making sidewalk chalk drawings for the first-grade students, thumb print trees in third grade classes and puppets for the kindergarten students.

Bollinger tells her students that there is no right or wrong in art and no mistakes. "All people see things differently and most all mistakes can be made into something workable," she said.

As a teacher, Bollinger has not only taught students to learn, but she has learned things about herself.

Teaching has many benefits, she said. "It helped with the understanding of raising a child and also helped to open up my mind to the world around. One of the most gratifying things to teachers is when a student accomplished something they are proud of and you see that special look on their face."

Bollinger graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 1974. She and her husband, Benny, have a daughter.