'Life is learning,'

says retiring special

education teacher

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Mary Paulson has gone through many changes in her life.

She was a student at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, when she met her first husband and married.

When he died, she returned to school to become a teacher and started teaching in Madelia in 1973.

Six years later, she met a Hanska farmer at a squaredance, remarried and became a stay-at-home mother until she was hired by New Ulm Public Schools to teach in Hanska. She later moved to Washington Elementary in New Ulm and then went to Jefferson Elementary, where she taught third grade and special education.

Last Friday, another change besat Paulson. She retired.

Now, she's looking forward to playing catch-up with her family, gardening, traveling and signing in the Hanska Sytennde Mai chorus. She said she's retiring because she's turning 65 this month and simply feels it's time.

"I've enjoyed teaching. If I had to do it over again, I'd do it again," she said.

Paulson is originally from Freeborn. Her first husband was a school teacher. Her mother was a teacher. And two of her sisters, and two of her children are teachers. Her decision to to follow in their footsteps wasn't based so much on family history but on a desire to work during the same times her children were in school.

When she first became a special education teacher, she was one of two in the District 88 system.

Special education is an umbrella term to Paulson because special education programs involve a variety of students with speech problems, learning disorders, behavioral problems and the mentally handicapped.

Many of the children in Jefferson Elementary's special education programs have what Paulson termed as a "processing problem." A child that does not have a learning disability can learn an idea in five tries while a student with a learning disability might need 50 to 100 tries, she explained.

"You're working with children that have average ability but because they have trouble, they don't feel like they have it," she said. "The challenge is to get them to (learn) on their own."

Finding a way to help a child and then teaching that student coping skills is what Paulson found most challenging. For many, a learning disability can be frustrating and can lead to behavioral problems.

She said she typically had eight to 10 students in her class each fall and would have 17 in her program by the end of a school year. She said the bulk of her students are third-graders who struggle with reading or with math skills.

But now, it's time for Paulson to get caught up in another sense. She said she plans to visit some of her children in Missouri and Pennsylvania and family in Washington D.C.

Of all the elements of her daily routine, Paulson said she will miss waking up at 6 a.m. the least and will miss the faculty at Jefferson Elementary the most because they stood during difficult times. Those times included her second husband's death, the aftermath of the 1998 tornado and an incident in which 200 gallons of fuel oil was mistakenly delivered to her basement and caused a very smelly flood.

Looking back, if she could do anything differently, Paulson says she wouldn't change a thing.

"Life is learning. When you stop learning, you're done. In the teaching profession, you're learning every day," she said. "We each have to learn for ourselves. That's the process of life."