A favorite teacher - Veronica Thurmond

Once a year, the La Conner Middle School gym fills for a day with eighth-graders proudly displaying well-decorated poster boards, giving out freebies and facts to those who pass by their tables.

The yearly culture fair’s public launch reveals the cumulative efforts of each individual student, under supervision of their teacher, Mrs. Thurmond — a teacher who is all about celebrating individuality.

Veronica Thurmond has taught La Conner’s seventh- and eighth-graders for the past 16 years and says the annual Culture Fair is considered a “right of passage” for many who are schooled here.

“It’s fun for me to get to see kids at their best — they have so much pride in their best work,” Thurmond said. “They’re already experts about themselves, but they still dig deeper and learn so much more.”

She works with the eighth-graders for six weeks to set up their culture fair projects, which can be on family interests, traditions, culture — or even food.

As a teacher, Thurmond believes in valuing differences — in culture and as well as learning styles.

“I like for them to be able to demonstrate knowledge in a variety of ways,” she said. For example, she does “Action Vocab,” which has the students create physical motions in order to help them remember their vocabulary.

“I just tested kids yesterday, and I took some out since they choose whether to be tested written or orally,” she said. For example, with a student who chose an oral test, “...he’s doing the actions as he’s telling me — and he’s like trying not to show me,” she said, laughing as she mimed the suppressed hand motions. “And that’s OK, that’s the way his brain has processed it.”

Thurmond says she’s learned from her students since she first began teaching, developing as a teacher and a person. She now emphasizes teaching in a variety of ways, so students can process and explain their knowledge.

“It makes it OK to do things differently, makes it OK to process slower or faster. To read actions, or speak out loud, or write it,” she said. “We don’t all think, speak or read at the same speed.”

Thurmond is described by her co-workers as firm but fun — also the way she describes herself.

“I think the kids would describe me as a weird combination of strict and fun,” she said, “silly and serious. High standards and high support — they know that I want them to succeed, but they know I’m not going to make it ‘easy’ for them to do so.”

Originally from El Paso, Texas, she said she always knew she’d be a teacher, and even as a little girl, she’d pretend to be the teacher with her younger sister. After moving to Washington, she got her bachelor’s degree from Central Washington University and came to La Conner to teach as an instructional assistant in the migrant program. After that, she began teaching at the middle school and hasn’t stopped since. Her three boys attend school at Burlington-Edison, where her husband teaches.

Two of her former students, now both high school seniors, say they enjoyed having her as a teacher.

“She keeps you on track,” Nakiya Edwards said. “She’s good at making you work but not so hard you don’t enjoy it.”

“She won’t accept anything but your best, or she’ll give it back,” Tsedenya Hasenbalg said.

Suzann Keith, who teaches English at the high school, said she’s known Thurmond for about 15 years. Keith said Thurmond is big on rituals and patterns, has a good sense of humor and isn’t afraid to be goofy — if the kids misbehave, she’s known to “ding” them, gesturing in their direction and using her “teacher powers” to DING the kids.

In the classroom, the kids have been known to use the few minutes whenever she steps outside to have a short-lived dance party in her absence, Keith said, complete with a student playing music and another student posted as a lookout.

“It’s a joke,” she said. “They know it’s a joke, and she knows it’s a joke.”

Thurmond said she likes teaching in La Conner, with its small-town feel and support from the community, and she appreciates the school’s administration. She also likes having the students for two years in a row, since she teaches social studies, history and Spanish.

And she loves witnessing her students’ passions — some of which were on display for the whole community in last week’s Culture Fair.