A Hand From Mom

The twittering can start just after lunchtime in Marilyn Buster’s second-grade classroom at Concordia Elementary School in San Clemente. A few pairs of eyes flit from their teacher to the door. Teacher, door.

As the petite, white-haired woman with the colorful clothes strides into Room 8, a chorus begins: “Your mom’s heeere. Your mom’s heeere.”

These 7-year-olds aren’t razzing a fellow student whose mom helps out in the classroom. Nope. They’re teasing the 61-year-old Mrs. Buster, whose most loyal volunteer is her own mom, 84-year-old Virginia Jones.

For nearly two decades, Jones, a retired teacher and reading specialist, has spent her Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons at a table in the rear of her daughter’s classroom, coaxing struggling readers through lessons with a mixture of grandmotherly love, individual assessment and dedication to the basics.

Amazingly, Buster said she doesn’t get stage fright teaching in front of Mom, and Jones said she would never question her daughter’s skills or strategies. They said they never quarrel.Daughter refers students who need help to Mom. Mom lets Daughter know when someone needs glasses or tests for special education.

And the kids benefit from a collective 61 years of experience in the classroom (not counting the volunteer time) between the two women.

“It’s the best thing going when you have two teachers in the classroom--what’s better than that?” asked parent volunteer Melinda Harwood, whose two children have been taught by the mother-daughter team. “The kids just hang on Mrs. Buster’s every word; they love her to death. And Mrs. Jones, she’s such a sweetheart. She runs a tight ship, but is gentle and wonderful.”

Neither Buster nor Jones can quite remember how this partnership developed.

Jones, who taught for 31 years in Redlands, San Bernardino and Monrovia, retired in 1980. She and her late husband, Walter, a teacher and high school counselor, then moved to Capistrano Beach to be close to Buster and her family.

“After retirement, she just missed being with children and helping children,” said Buster, a woman with neat brown hair and glasses. “She always felt very strongly about volunteering and the importance of people helping schools. So she lived what she believed in.”

“We took it for granted [that I’d volunteer],” her mother said. “I don’t think we had any special agreement. ‘Oh, goody, you’re going to come.’ ”

Jones chuckled. “I’m not just thinking of her. I did it for myself and the kids,” she said.

The kids seem to know something’s different about Room 8. Their teacher is good, they agree. She is the kind who makes you wish you could stay in class during a sunny September recess, despite the promise of four-square and kickball outside, one girl offered.

Witness a recent lesson on amphibians--a big “college word” Mrs. Buster likes to throw around.

First, she and the kids talked about characteristics of amphibians--their ability to live in water and on land, their strong back legs for leaping, their moist skin, their talent for camouflaging themselves (another college word, that “camouflage”) and their appetite for insects.

Then out come the pictures, laminated National Geographic-style photos of rain forest frogs. lime-green tree frogs with bulging red eyes, poison dart frogs, seemingly painted in red and black.

The pupils stopped squirming on the carpet. Their eyes grew rather tree-frog-ish.

“Oh. That. Is. So. Cool,” one boy blurted. “He’s like a Ninja!”

In the back of the room, at a rectangular table with a small vine in a frog planter, Jones looked up with admiration from a story she and a boy were reading.

Later, she expresses her admiration: “I think I influenced Marilyn because I love teaching. But she’s on her own as far as how good she is. She’s a natural.”

The same could be said for her mother.

Since the school year has just begun, Jones and the students are sharing stories and taking small tests. The results, carefully penciled into a spiral notebook, will determine which students are in an advanced reading group and which will receive extra help from Jones. Her specialty is extra help--for those learning to read in a second language and those whose minds seem to trip over tricky letter combinations.

On this day, Jones in matching pink slacks, silk blouse and rose cardigan, hunkered at the table with 7-year-old Hudson Glover. His hair fell in clumps over his forehead as he read: “frost, fast, first . . . right, ride, reach.”

“Wow, you are so good, Hudson,” Jones enthused. “I have to get you some harder words.”

When Hudson returned to his seat, Jones explained her philosophy of teaching reading: individual lessons and the right materials. Too easy and kids become bored. Too hard and they become frustrated. The right materials will be challenging enough that successes mean something. Constant encouragement is a must.

Hudson said having both Buster and Jones around is “pretty cool.”

“If there’s just the teacher, then you’d learn a lot,” he explained. “But if there’s another teacher, you’d be better at reading too.”

These days, kids are much better at reading, no matter what politicians or professors tell you, Buster and Jones believe.

The “golden days” of California education are a myth, as far as Jones is concerned. Maybe affluent school districts experienced them, but she recalls the bigger class sizes and the dearth of supplies in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

There were years when her school couldn’t afford paper towels, so kids had to let their hands air dry after washing, she said. Sometimes, the only extra reading materials were those that Jones borrowed from the public library.

Today, however, materials are more plentiful, and “kids just seem to get smarter and smarter and smarter,” Buster said. “When I taught second grade, we didn’t cover half what she covers now,” her mother said.

The accomplishments of Jones and Buster have not gone unrecognized. In a school that has achieved Blue Ribbon status, the federal Department of Education’s highest honor, Buster was honored as teacher of the year in 1997. Jones won the same honor in Monrovia.

Perhaps more telling, parents who know about their partnership often wish that the classroom assignment lottery lands their children in Buster’s room, parent volunteer Harwood said.

Aside from the educational aspects, parents said Buster and Jones teach their children about volunteerism, good mother-daughter relationships and the vitality of seniors. The kids are still a bit sketchy on the aging part, Jones said with a laugh: “One child once asked me, ‘How old are you Mrs. Jones? Mrs. Jones, Are you 40?’ ”

When will the partnership end? “My husband has been after me for years to retire and travel,” said Buster. “I’ve not set any particular time [to leave teaching]. I love it.”