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Danah: This is Danah Hashem speaking and, for this episode, our 8th episode, we wanted to deviate from some of the patterns we’ve been following in this podcast so far because we want to pause to reflect on and honor the passing of one of our colleagues, Lori Johnson. If you’ve been following along with the podcast, you may know her from her episode with her daughter, Alex Johnson, on summer reading, from our introductory episode, or you may recognize her voice as the introduction to each of our episodes thus far. What you may not know is that Lori is the true originator of this podcast as a whole. It was her idea, her vision, and her passion for continued growth and exploration in our teaching that created the opportunities and the motivation we needed to get this podcast off the ground. She’s the reason this podcasts exists, and so it seemed important that this podcast acknowledge in some small way her passing.
On this past November 7th, we lost Lori suddenly and unexpectedly. The depth and breadth of this loss is overwhelming. This podcast represents the tiniest, most microscopic fraction of the ways in which Lori kindly and gently inspired us all to push ourselves to be better and to continue our learning. And so, in honor of all she did and all she left behind, we want to dedicate this podcast to Lori, and we want to take some time to reflect on the power for goodness that a loving, driven, and thoughtful teacher can have on the people and places around them.
And so many of the members of the LCA community who have contributed to and supported the production of this podcast have taken the time to share briefly about the impact that Lori had on their lives and pedagogy. As we hear their words, we’d like to thank you for being a part of this episode, and honoring Lori alongside us.
Rebecca: So, my name is Rebecca Lefroy, and I’m the newest hire here in the English department at LCA. Lori hired me in June, and I still remember my first meeting with her which was I think supposed to be a short meeting, but maybe went on for 2-3 hours in which we talked about all things education and, from that moment, I could see her enthusiasm for students, her enthusiasm for reading, her enthusiasm for, um, professional development and innovative pedagogy, and all those things were only confirmed when I came to work with her in September. Um, Lori and I taught middle school English together, and she had a whole wealth of information on middle school students and how best to teach them English. I would so often go to her for book recommendations for students. If you had a really specific need for a book for a student, she would know exactly what book would be best. She knew young adult literature inside and out, and was just so perfectly suited to that role, so, from a middle school english perspective, she will be missed hugely.
She was also my mentor, so we should be meeting right now, and, um, in our mentor meetings, we had such fun discussing not only nitty bitty practical things like how to use the portal and how to report, but bigger ideas about pedagogy, about how to wrap up a lesson effectively, about the point of homework, um, about individual students and how best to address their needs and help them. She was always so available to me. Not only did she give me that full hour, but she would interrupt what looked like much more important conversations with other people to come and help me. She noticed when I looked troubled or worried about something, and she would check up that I was OK. She had a huge heart for developing new teachers, and I’m very sorry that I only got to learn from her for a couple of months.
She also had a huge amount of energy. She had her finger in so many pies in the school, and I’m sure we’ll keep discovering more of those pies. She would come into school before me and leave after me, and I would be exhausted by the end of the day, but she would still be very merry and very jolly, and I’m in my twenties, so I’m not quite sure how that happened, but she just had an incredible energy about her, and a love of all things which just seemed to drive her and empower her. She was energetic right right through to the end, so that energy will be sorely missed. But I think what will be missed most of all was the heart she had for people. She truly wanted to see people – students, teachers, administration – she wanted to see them flourish, and I always felt like she was very for me, and wanted to develop me and wanted to use my gifts and nurture my gifts and encourage them, and help me help others flourish. And I think that’s what I want to take forward from my short time with Lori, and what I want to learn from her. She will be sorely missed. She’s left a real hole, and what a wonderful mentor to have.
Karen: Lori Johnson was many things to many people; however, for me, she wasn’t a mentor. We were just two friends who worked together. A lot of parents used to call us the bookends of the English department. Kids would come in in 6th grade, and they would start with Lori, and then they would end with me in 12th grade. So her passing has a lot of significance for me. In many ways, I knew Lori differently than her students and even some of her other colleagues. I knew her first as a parent and as a friend from church. When I first met Lori 15/17 years ago, she was still on her, we used to joke and say it was her 7-12 year maternity leave, when she had her three children. So I did not know her as a colleague. And I had just had my own children, and I was working full time, um, and she was such a mentor and helped me work through all of that. I would have these fears, you know, was I making the right decision? Um, and every time I went to her, we would talk and hang out and share our fears and worries about being moms and all the choices we were making and what this would look like, so I feel really privileged that I saw a vulnerable side of Lori where she too was just a mom who loved her own children so much and had fears and worries and concerns just like me, and whenever we would talk about it, we would always feel so much better, and we realized that we were doing the best job we could and that we were honoring God in different ways, and that our kids would be OK. And I know, for me personally, when my two kids came to LCA and got to have her as a teacher, she really helped me be a parent and helped me work through what that looked like, especially where I worked. So Lori, like I said, was a lot of things to a lot of people, but, for me, she really helped me be a parent, and I will always appreciate and love her for that, and her words of wisdom will stick with me forever.
Molly: I met Lori Johnson a year ago October. Um, she came to my former school as a visiting committee member of the NEASC process, and of course our story would begin in a library. I noticed in an email that she was visiting and that she was from LCA, and I immediately thought, “oh I really want to meet her!” So the next day she came into the library, and she was already down in the stacks looking at all of our books. And I walked up to her immediately, and I introduced myself. And so, we just talked shop, and we got to talk about books and literature and her favorite authors, and I just discovered in that first conversation the profound love she had of reading. And I asked her what her favorite books were to teach and what the 6th graders loved to read, and it was just so great. I just cherish that moment, and Lori is the reason that I am LCA because, at the end of that conversation, she shared that, she said, “We love our librarian now, but she’s retiring at the end of the year.” And I remember just tucking that in the back of my brain. And it’s just so fun. And I just remember how welcoming she was from the moment I talked with her, she just had this way of putting you at ease. And just her laughter and her smile, I just love that. And I just felt so just at home when I would talk with her, and so, when I got to LCA for the interview, I saw that the position was posted and I came in, and of course she was on the interview panel. And the minute I walked in, she said, “Molly! We’ve met!” and she looked me straight in the eye and said, “welcome!” And I said, “thank you.” I said, “you’re right. We have met.” So I just have her to thank, and I will never ever forget that conversation and the time that I had with her, and I just hope and pray that we as a community can collectively just extend that legacy of hers, of her joy for reading and just for being exposed to all different times of literature, and to just really take heart in what she loved. And that was teaching students and really living out her love for the Lord. I’m really grateful for her.
Danah: And this is Danah Hashem again. It’s hard for me, and I know for all of us, to even talk about Lori without losing myself a little bit to the sadness I feel and that we all feel at her loss. She’s the sort of person that you feel the absence of in every possible way. We feel her absence as a friend, as a colleague, as a teacher, as a mentor, you feel it in the hallways, in our personal lives. It’s honestly just too overwhelming to even try to begin to describe the magnitude of what Lori gave us with her time here. She was one of the first people I met here at LCA. It was my first interview, and I knew no one. I wasn’t sure about LCA, but Lori was. And I remember this clearly. Lori was excited to see me. I don’t know why, honestly. She didn’t know me, but she was excited to see me. And she was excited to talk. She had read my blog, like ALL of my blog, and some of my published work, and she had questions. She was genuinely interested in me, this fresh out of grad school teacher with basically no experience. She made me feel like the work I did was important and that I could be someone important here, and that has shaped my time at LCA probably more than anything else. That’s the tone I started my time here with. And I think that’s the thing it will be the hardest for me to hold on to with her gone.
And this podcast is so small, probably the smallest way I can think of, to honor her and all that she was to us, but I find the scale of her impact to be inspiring. I know that we all do. If the goal of this podcast is to explore and pursue what it means to give and share life through our teaching, through our pedagogy, I can think of no better way to do that than by acknowledging and remembering Lori. She brought life to everything she did, including her teaching. And I don’t know honestly if we are able to do that without her, but, with quiet determination and sadness, I know we all plan to do our very best. For Lori.
So thank you for joining us for this special episode of Prose and Context, the podcast for life-giving teaching by the English department at Lexington Christian Academy. Please subscribe to our podcast and check back again next week for our next episode!