I want to write more about my fellow teachers, especially the ones I consider masters of their craft. There’s no better person to start with than my English colleague Lea Longerbeam, who is retiring next week after 33 years in the profession. 

No one has ever asked me what I think to be the best way to measure a teacher’s value. If they did ask me, I might say that written expressions of appreciation from students is a solid metric. After all, it’s rare that a teenager takes the time to write a letter of thanks. When it does happen, much like a lunar eclipse, it’s a big moment in the recipient’s week. 

I’ve thought about this a lot, as I have shared an office space with Lea all year, and this is what I see when I turn around at my desk to ask her a question… 

This isn’t the only metric we can use to establish Lea as an amazing teacher. If it’s the good word of your colleagues, she has that too, from pretty much every person who knows her — fellow teachers to the administrators to the custodial staff, who are extremely loyal to her (the display of student notes was actually done by a member of the custodial staff for Lea a few summers ago when her desk was moved to the English workroom). Indeed, one of my first memories of her was when she reported for work in August and was pleasantly surprised to find a Diet Coke waiting for her from someone in the building (I think it was an admin) who had remembered her late-July birthday. 

I could keep going – and I will, actually. After sharing an office space with Mrs. Longerbeam, I’ve observed so much that is to be celebrated and emulated. For instance, that she is ending her career and still maintaining a zen-like appreciation of the present moment. That she is versatile enough to have taught every level of high school English, back to when Loudoun English curriculum had four levels: honors, academic, general, and basic. That she is retiring and still maintains a consistent level of empathy for her students and coworkers throughout the year.  

One of the great things of working with Lea, and I imagine one of the great things about having her as a teacher, is that she loves people, loves to tell a story. She has been kind enough to let me observe her over the past two months and sit down for an hour to reflect on her career and methods. 

*

The first class I observe is her first block Intro to Journalism class. As a part-time teacher, she works on A days, and this year she only teaches electives – Intro to Journalism and Public Speaking this semester. 

The digital Promethean Board is used, but where possible Mrs. Longerbeam elects for handwritten instruction, writing the day’s agenda on the whiteboard.

“Put your phones aside now,” she says after bidding the class good morning. “While I’m taking attendance, here’s what you need to be doing…”

As she teaches the lesson (about the nature of writing feature pieces for a magazine or newspaper) she is calmly circulating around the classroom.

The lesson is threaded with references to her own life, former students, her own career in journalism. She’s pleasant and encouraging to her students, but not oblivious. 

In fact, she’s straightforward when it’s required. “Everybody with me?” she says after a pause on an emphatic point. “Everybody be with me, because I know you have your laptops out, but some of you have other stuff up.”

Later in the lesson she assesses how well they’ve been focusing. “How do we end a feature?” She gives plenty of wait time for the class – filled with cerebral, writerly freshmen in the first block of the day, probably the least voluble group of students in the school –  to contribute an answer.

For student answers, she offers praise, and sometimes clarification and expansion. 

Just because they’re quiet doesn’t mean they’re angels. “I should have seen all of you shake your head,” she comments after asking a question, “but you’re on your phone.” 

As she leads a cumulative discussion about the progression of the feature, she writes down what students say as they contribute. She’s peaceful and collected, sends them on their way with their assignment and begins to conference with each student. Her writing conferences took place at the student’s desk, which I found a little surprising: you’d expect the soon-to-retire teacher to summon the youths to her desk. But there was a clear purpose to her staying on her feet, one of which was to keep the students focused on their independent work while she conferenced. 

“Guys, you have work to do,” she reminds them as the side-conversations rise a bit. 

*

Mrs. Longerbeam graduated high school from Loudoun County High School in 1983.

Karen Lea Trenary
Loudoun County High School
Leesburg, Virginia
Class of 1983

About her own classroom experience, she happily confesses that her talkativeness often resulted in her sitting in the corner.

She told me this a few weeks ago when we sat down and had a chat and I got to put on my Barbara Walters-hat. Some of my questions made her pause for a moment and organize her exact thoughts. One question that she answered instantly, though, was her favorite teacher in high school.

That was Jimmy Parker. Mr. Parker was a “contradiction in terms,” as Lea put it, a mix of West Virginia-homespunness that belied his considerable erudition. 

Jimmy Parker yearbook photo. Courtesy Christina Burge (Loudoun County High School Librarian)

In fact, Parker is a published poet, and so imminent in the field of word-study he gets blurbed on the back of high school etymology textbooks. 

Back cover to English Vocabulary Quick Reference, 1997

He taught Mrs. Longerbeam English 9, Etymology, and Public Speaking, all of which she went on to teach in her own career. She described his method of teaching as fast-paced and hilarious, filled with language jokes and pantomimes to illustrate tricky-to-conceptualize concepts. Nicknames were bestowed on his students: Lea, whose maiden name was Trenary, Parker nicknamed Tree-Lea-nary. (This was shortened over the course of her high school career to where her yearbook contains numerous inscriptions to “Tree.”) The students in turn referred to their teacher as Pappy Parker, a reference, according to Lea, to the hillbilly fried chicken mascot who, according to my additional research, was a member of the Roy Rogers extended menu universe in the 70s and 80s.    

After graduating from Radford University in 1987 with a BA in Speech Communications and Journalism, Lea marketed cable channels at the now-defunct Richmond journalism entity Media General. After a year there she answered her calling to education, enrolling in the teaching certification program at George Mason.  In the fall of 1990 she finished her BA in English and student-taught at Loudoun Valley High School. 

Her new temp job with the Victim Witness Program in Loudoun County involved helping victims who were about to testify in court, being with them to keep them calm and give them moral support before and during court. As Mrs. Longerbeam put it, this could involve spending time with a rape victim about to go into the same room as their abuser, or playing in a nursery with a kid who was about to testify in court about the things done to them by their parents.

Staff photo from the 2010 Woodgrove yearbook

Things materialized for Lea’s teaching career during her third year applying, when in 1992 she was offered a long-term subbing position as a journalism teacher at her alma mater, Loudoun County High School. The choice wasn’t as clear-cut, though, since that very same day she was offered a full time position in Victim Witness Protection. She chose the long-term sub job, though, working there the whole year, after which she was given a full-time position. She worked at County for five years, joining the ranks of the teachers who had once taught her, including Pappy Parker.   

From there Mrs. Longerbeam taught at Loudoun Valley High School until 2010, when she made the move across Route 7 to open Woodgrove.

Mrs. Longerbeam with the 2017 Newspaper Staff

*

In late April I observe Lea for a second time, this time during her Public Speaking class. 

It’s a Monday, and she starts off class asking the students how they enjoyed Thursday’s prom.

As with her Intro to Journalism class, she handwrites the agenda on the board. 

“The more focused you are, the faster you can go,” she tells them.  

Due to absences and senior capstones starting, the room contains only five students – five dudes, true dudes in the fullest connotations of the word. They’re attentive and respectful to their teacher.

“Some of you should feel bad you didn’t get it to me on time,” she says at one point, referring to an outline that many didn’t submit. Several dudes hang their heads.   

There’s a project coming up, a big speech in front of the whole class. As with her Intro to Journalism class, her lesson is filled with asides and tidbits from her own life. She cites the advice of a friend who is an opera singer with a tip about drinking a combination of water and grape juice a few hours before public speaking to ensure that you don’t get dry mouth in the midst of an important public speaking event. 

It’s a difficult balance to strike with a small class, especially an elective class near the end of the year. What impresses me most is how she keeps the dudes engaged and focused during her lesson and productive during their independent work, doing it in a way that’s pleasant for everyone involved. 

*

As Lea was cleaning out her desk a few weeks ago she found a paper that made her laugh. “This was from a prank I pulled on Joe Spicer,” she said, showing me the paper, a carefully composed (totally fake) notice of dismissal from a college that Spicer was attending to earn re-certification points. 

A few days later as she was cleaning she showed me some desperate notes scribbled on the back of tardy passes. They were written by former 11 Academic students who missed her to the point of comical desperation… 

*

One of the questions I asked Lea was about her guiding philosophy, a mantra she lived by professionally, if such a thing existed for her. She turned the question over for a while before answering. 

“I always want students to rise to the occasion,” she said. “I want them to realize that often they’re half-assing stuff that they hurry through just to get a check mark. One of my favorite things is to see kids get excited about that potential they may not have realized they have.”

She talked about the value of holding students accountable: “I would always tell the kids that I’m a stickler for them doing the right thing, but that doesn’t mean I’m an ogre.”

A much tougher question for her was that of most memorable student. Due to her role as the journalism and newspaper instructor, she taught a lot of the same kids for four years, and they became, according to her, like family. “I got to know their parents, I went to their houses for graduation events, I took the kids across the country for competitions.”  

Also due to the fact that she had taught at psychiatric facilities and juvenile detention centers, there were also students who were memorable for the wrong reasons. She quickly qualified that, though, saying in her whole career there were only a few students in who made the hair stand up on her arms. She added that in almost all students, there is something positive to be found. 

But she didn’t answer the question – who was her most memorable student? 

She thought for a moment. “Tommy Wright,” she said. “We had a prank war. This was one of my last years at Valley. Tommy was girl-crazy. Different girlfriend every week, and he was always tardy to class because he was walking the halls with these girls between class. I’m talking about showing up ten minutes late.

“So one day Tommy’s late, as usual, and I looked at the class and I said, ‘You guys want to play a prank on Tommy?’ So I gave them a quiz I had printed for another class and tell them to act like they’re taking it. So Tommy rolls in a few minutes later, and I tell him sit down and hurry up and start the quiz. We keep it going for a solid twenty minutes. He would look at the worksheet, then he’d look around like, ‘What is this?’ Finally we broke down and had to tell him.  

“Well, a month later, I’m teaching a lesson, and Tommy’s not in class. Now, we had real closets at Valley, not these rolly things at the new schools. So I’m teaching my lesson and I’m thinking where is Tommy? All the other kids are being really good and quiet. All of a sudden my closet door flies open and Tommy jumps out screaming. Well, I had a heart attack. The whole class was in on it. I said, ‘You traitors!’” 

Longerbeam laughed at the memory, then continued.

“A few years ago I was at the Cheesecake Factory with my son. We finish our meal and the waitress brings a gigantic piece of cheesecake to the table. I say ‘we didn’t order this.’ She says ‘Oh, no, this is for you.’”  

Out from the back came a beaming Tommy Wright, the assistant manager, ten years older but still the consummate prankster. He asked if she remembered him (duh) and updated her on his life; he was engaged, coincidentally, to a teacher. 

Such are the stories one hears when speaking with Lea, career educator, who always gently prefaces stories of someone’s incompetence with “love the guy to death, but…”; who is seemingly two degrees of separation from knowing every person in Loudoun County; who was once memorably compared against a colleague who had the upper hand because, unlike Lea, she was both “a mother and an intellectual.”

This backhanded comment became a running joke with Lea and her friends, and it’s a designation that someone with even the slightest amount of perceptiveness can see applies to her. As a mother, Lea has raised two sons, the oldest of whom has followed her into the profession. As an intellectual, she leaves a legacy of nurturing both coworkers and students with her knowledge and example. In the classroom, this knowledge was shared not just with students who were eager to learn, but often with students who had little desire to be in school. To be a positive, edifying force in these peoples’ lives requires patience, confidence, and a huge amount of intelligence. It is truly the mark of a real teacher. 

Near the end of my talk with Lea, she commented, sort of unprompted, on the joys of teaching these tough classes, the types of students that other teachers dread. 

“I always enjoyed teaching them – the characters.” She laughed. “As long as they’re on your side, it makes it a wonderful time.”