Wood Middle School opened in 1981.
Nancy Ankrom started teaching there in 1985.
She retired last year, after spending her entire 35-year teaching career at Wood.
“I miss the people, my friends.”
Nancy recently returned to Wood to field questions from current students.
They are working on a project for Wood’s 40th anniversary.
Past and present students, parents, and teachers have been invited for a dance and social event on Friday, April 1 at 5 p.m.
There’s no one who knows more about Wood than Nancy.
The students asked about buildings and dress code, what kids liked to do for fun back in the 90s and what her favorite school lunch was.
It was enchiladas, by the way.
But out of the dozens of questions and answers—one stood out.
It was her answer about her favorite place on campus.
“My favorite place is probably the hallways--seeing the kids in the hallways. Because that's where you really get to see the kids--learn what they're really like. ‘Oh, so you’re doing that in the hall.’ So when they come in, just how they change, when they're with their friends and then they're in the classroom and you're watching them interact with their friends not in a classroom setting. So you can connect.”
It was in the hallways where Nancy learned one of her students liked Spurs legend David Robinson. It’s where she talked with another student about “I Love Lucy.” The hallways are where she learned who was friends who, who was at odds with each other, and who became friends again after lunch. In those hallways, their personalities bloomed and she caught a glimpse of who they were under the surface.
For Nancy, teaching is and always has been about connecting and building relationships. It’s that connection to each other and the community that makes Wood so special. She knows teachers there get that—she was one of them for nearly the entire time Wood has been open.
Teachers come and go, kids move up to high school but the hallways don’t change. The goal of teaching doesn’t change.
“If you love what you do, it's not a job. This is a challenge. Middle school is challenging. So you have to really love what you do and you have to really love kids.”
Nancy does love the kids.
Always has and always will.
And that’s why, even after retirement, she returns to help the Wood students and walk the halls. Because the hallways remain the one place at Wood where kids are just themselves and maybe the place where a whole lot of learning happens—for teachers and students.
