Written by Jane Gutsell
In December Chris Phelps invited me
to her lovely home for a cup of tea, holiday cookies, and an introduction to
the many fascinating ornaments and artifacts that she has collected over the
course of many years from her extensive travels both here and abroad.
Chris loves to travel. As the daughter of two university professors, she
was able to spend summers visiting different places, camping, and generally
broadening her horizons. Over the years she has been to all fifty states
which enhanced her fifth grade social studies curriculum, including in recent
years a second trip to Alaska to see the Northern Lights where she went with
Reg, her special friend of 25 years. She has also been to eight countries
of Europe, Costa Rica, and even Australia, but most of all she enjoys the
American Southwest. Her collection is brimming with wonderful ceramics
and artifacts from the first peoples of this stunning region. Our visit
gave me special insights into a vibrant, enthusiastic, charming woman who,
after teaching fifth grade in the public schools of Alexandria, Virginia, for
five years, was hired to teach fifth grade at Greensboro Day School in the fall
of 1981. She started with twenty kids in the small trailer behind the
Administration Building, and she quickly became respected as one of the most
creative and innovative teachers on our faculty. She remained a fifth
grade teacher for all of her 28 years at GDS before retiring in June, 2010.
Chris loved teaching
ten-year-olds, who are “at that perfect age just before adolescence kicks
in.” Able to wrestle with big ideas, they are eager learners who
still love and want to please their parents and teachers. Chris was
famous for teaching organizational skills, and invented a system of positive
reinforcement she called “Superstars”. Every week she posted a
chart showing the students’ names and the assignments that she expected
them to complete. Those students who completed everything got to spend
the last half hour on Friday afternoon playing outside, and the others stayed
in a study hall, working to complete the week’s work. “There’s
not a fifth grader alive,” she laughs, “who would not do anything for
extra playtime!”
Chris taught
calligraphy in order to emphasize good, legible penmanship, and in the early
days of classroom computers she introduced her students to “Touch
Typing”, a necessary skill in our computerized world. It was lots of
fun challenging her students to surpass her speed of 40 words per minute!
Chris also always had deep appreciation for her students’ parents with whom she
built good relationships.
Over the years Chris
was awarded several Teacher Enrichment Endowment Grants, which helped her in
her travels and numerous unique and exciting archeological and paleontological
digs, all of which she used in her teaching. For example, she brought
back fossils from creatures that roamed eastern Arizona 225 million years
ago. But Graduation Day 1991 was, she says with great emotion, “the
best day of my professional life.” She was sitting with the faculty
listening to the description of that year’s recipient of the prestigious
Hendrix Excellence in Teaching Award, having no idea who it was until her name
was called at the very end. Nothing has made her more proud than to be
one of this very elite group of Day School teachers. Teaching in a
college prep school was a perfect fit for Chris. Her belief that high
standards are the best preparation for the real world found a compatible educational
home at GDS. She had the highest respect for her Lower School colleagues
who were all dedicated professionals — “No slackers here!” she
always maintained.
Soon after retiring
Chris realized how much she missed her Day School colleagues, so she contacted
the Alumni Director, Kathy Davis at that time, and with her help put together a
group of retired teachers they named “Bengal Friends.” At
Chris’s instigation, many retired Lower School teachers now meet for lunch once
a month to support each other, share experiences, and keep those important
friendships alive. Chris enjoys reading historical fiction — “the
longer the better,” so of course she loves the novels of James
Michener. She has recently taken up dabbling in the Phelps family tree and
has found a source that takes her bloodline back 21 generations to the 1400’s
in England. She and Reg continue to travel whenever and wherever
possible. One recent memorable trip was a river cruise down the Rhine
River in Germany. She is also thoroughly enjoying spending more time with
family, including the new experience of helping care for her adorable
two-year-old grandniece Clara.
Chris says that from
third grade on she knew that she wanted to be a teacher. “I
had,” she lovingly declares, “a wonderful, kind, patient teacher whom
I wanted to emulate! I also have a healthy dose of teaching DNA since
both my parents taught at Duke University!” When asked to reflect on
her time at Greensboro Day, Chris summed it up this way: “I feel so
richly blessed that I spent my entire professional life doing what I was meant
to do, and GDS was the perfect place for me.” And we at GDS have
been richly blessed by her dedication to her profession and by her love for all
Bengals great and small.
