By Julie Slama | [email protected]

When Monte Vista Elementary students come back to school this fall, many of them will realize one of their favorite teachers, Lynn Asay, is not returning.

Asay, after 27 years at Monte Vista and two more at Oquirrh Elementary in West Jordan, retired at the end of the school year. 

“The biggest thing I’ll miss is the people,” she said before she packed her belongings. “I’ve been here through so many principals, secretaries and teachers, but it has been the children that have kept me going. They’re so cute; they have that innocence and sweetness and are eager to learn.”

Asay graduated college in the days when “there weren’t computers” on school desks and student taught in Lyman, Wyoming, in 1977. She recalled getting purple fingers from the mimeograph machine used to make copies and having sticky fingers after using a lot of rubber cement with classroom projects.

Paper was rationed so the teachers were relieved when overheads were introduced, and filmstrips made way to televisions that were rolled in on carts.

“Now, every child has a Chromebook, and our curriculum and testing are more rigorous,” she said.

After taking a break to raise four kids, Asay said she was ready to return to the classroom.

“When my youngest started kindergarten, so did I,” she said.

Those were her years at Oquirrh. Asay came to Monte Vista in 1994 and since 2004, has taught first and second grades. Before leaving, she reflected how education has changed during her tenure.

“Education is always changing, pushing you to learn,” she said. “We play and explore; we learn through the good and bad times and have so many more opportunities with technology. We read, write and think and work more in groups and use our devices to access information to enhance our learning. We loved putting on programs. We’d have a Halloween program and a Dr. Seuss program and one for the winter holidays. The class would sing songs for parents in our room.”

Asay also has been known to have students learn their vocabulary and spelling words while singing. She may be one of the few teachers in the district who has had a piano in her classroom, said her 26-year colleague, Tracy McCurdy.

“Lynn always finds ways to enrich students’ education,” McCurdy said. “She has a strong science background, so she teaches them about it with music. She has rock cycle songs, weather songs, even songs about math rules. I teach next door, and we hear her play and them singing. It’s a great tool for their memory.”

Asay said for longtime teachers, they had to step up to be able to provide learning virtually during the pandemic.

“Kids are more tech-savvy,” she said. “But using technology really has enriched their learning.”

However, even though students have more information at their fingertips, and they were able to hold class virtually when the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools, she also realizes the negative side of using technology.

“Students are on their screens a lot more instead of outside playing; they’re not learning as much social interaction,” she said. 

Asay said in her early years, school used to be a time when students dressed up more and were more proper addressing teachers.

“Students have always appreciated their teachers and have been respectful,” she said. “They still have the desire to learn even though this year has been harder than ever for them to pay attention. It’s been a hard year for everyone in education during the pandemic.”

Asay also recalled when owning a box of 64 crayons that came with a sharpener was a treasure.

McCurdy remembers Asay taking advantage of crayon remnants to melt them to create an igneous layer and sandwiching it between other layers to represent sedimentary rocks. She then added a song that taught students about difference of rocks. 

McCurdy said many families have realized “what is special about Lynn is her patience and kindness. She may plan ways to help students who need a challenge or who are struggling by reteaching it. She finds activities that work and then, models them to the rest of us so we are able to reach our students at our school and across the district. She has projects about everything. I remember she used Oreos to model the phases of the moon, and another time, she’d use butterfly paintings to have students record their lifecycle in their science journals. It was ingenious how she integrated art into scientific learning and like her songs about subjects, it stuck with the students.”

Asay always held her students to a higher level of learning, McCurdy said.

“Lynn set her standards higher, and they’d work hard, which prepared them for higher grades.,” she said. “They became the ‘experts’ in everything and were more capable than they thought they could be.” 

For example, McCurdy remembers Asay introduced blueprints to her youngsters.

“Why just learn how to do area and perimeter when they could apply it to real life?” McCurdy said. “She had them figure out the perimeter of the classroom. It was more rigorous and no longer just math problems, but they understood the concept and were able to apply it.”

Asay also had students learn Utah history with a hands-on approach.

“They’d dress up, shake and churn butter, make bread, learn the Virginia Reel and create button spinners and do their work using chalkboards,” McCurdy said. “It was those extra things that made connections for students.” 

What has meant a lot to Asay through the years is the students’ hand-written notes of appreciation and the special gifts they have made and given her. She read some as she cleaned out cupboards and files and gave away some books in her classroom, although she didn’t have many takers for VHS or cassette tapes.

“I’ve cherished the kids’ notes,” she said.” They’ve written, ‘You’re the best teacher ever,’ ‘I love you so much’ and ‘You are so funny.’ I didn’t think I was funny, but they’ve kept me laughing.” 

Many of those students have grown and married. Some came to say hello, or rather, good-bye to their teacher.

“Something has always drawn me to kids,” Asay said. “I love to see them learn. I love preparing and planning lessons and seeing them progress every year. The classroom is the best place in the world to be. It’s been a wonderful ride. Now, I’m ready for a new chapter.”