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Henrietta Heron (art work sculpture) outside to greet you
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August 28, 1970, Seattle Times = The closest thing to women's lib at KIRO-710 AM occurred when Rosalie Serra, petite music librarian, threatened to wear a militant button, but didn't. "No one gave me one," she explained sheepishly.
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October 2, 2001, Evergreen
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She's taught them all; Pullman teacher to retire after 34 years
By E. Kirsten Peters
Moscow Pullman Daily News
May 17, 2005
For 34 years Rosalie Harms has taught first-graders how to read. She's also taught second-graders how to write a sentence and third-graders the basics of arithmetic.
Now Harms has decided it's time to move on to other things.
"I couldn't base my decision to retire on whether I was tired of teaching, because that will never happen," she said in her third-grade classroom at Franklin Elementary School in Pullman. "But it's time to move to the next stage."
Over the years Harms has had opportunities to teach as many as four siblings from the same family.
"What's funny is that the parents always say something like 'Now this one is different from the last one,' like they need to prepare me, but of course, all kids are different," Harms said.
Harms even has taught the children of some of her former students.
Harms brought an international flair to all her years of teaching in Pullman. Born in the Philippines but with a father in the U.S. military, Harms grew up all over the world. She credits her personal background with what she calls her passion for diversity. In recent years she has taught at Franklin, home to Pullman's English as a Second Language program.
"ESL is really only half an hour per day. The rest of the day the students are in the regular classroom, so all the teachers and the whole school cooperates to support the ESL students," she said.
Harms earned her college degree from the University of Washington.
"Before he married me, my husband, Jerry, used to say 'the only good Husky is a dead Husky.' He had to change that," she said with a laugh.
Jerry Harms, a loyal alumnus of Washington State University, taught history for 30 years at Pullman High School. He is semi-retired, but does a lot of substitute teaching at the high school and still announces high school basketball games.
"High school teaching is quite different from what I've done. Once I tried to decorate Jerry's class just before school started, a bit like I do here in my class, but that didn't go over well with him," she said.
Grade school teachers can tell a great deal about what a person will be like in later life, Harms said.
For many years Harms would tell her husband about the personalities of some of the students he was about to encounter in his high school class based on what she knew of them years previously in elementary school.
"And later in the school year he'd say, 'Yes, I see what you mean,' " she said.
Connections with the families of former students have twice led Harms into work as a wedding coordinator.
"I felt very honored to do that, and I'll be glad to do more of that in retirement," she said. "What I learned is that in that role you have to be a very good listener."
Harms takes pride in the accomplishments of former students and keeps in contact with some who have scattered across the country and around the world. She also mourns the few who have died. Harms believes grade school children are noticeably different than they were 34 years ago when she began her career in Pullman.
"They are more sophisticated, more exposed to reality. Like when 9/11 happened we discussed it all right that same morning, because the children knew all about it," she said.
Harms isn't convinced there are more children today with hyperactivity-type disorders.
"But there is more labeling of children than there used to be and I hate the labeling E the labels can end up as an excuse for teachers and for parents not to do more or be successful with the child," she said.
During her career Harms also has seen a great increase in the number and intensity of standardized exams given to young children. The last installment of these changes has been the state-mandated Washington Assessment of Student Learning.
"There is a place for the WASL because we do need accountability, but I'm concerned that it is used to label kids and ends up creating negativity in kids," she said. "There needs to be a better balance between tests and all the other work that children do."
* Rosalie Harms' former students and the parents of former students are welcome to attend a retirement event from 4 to 6 p.m. June 1 at Franklin Elementary School.
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