RETIRED - Kathy Meyer reflected on many lessons learned during her 37 years of teaching. Star Eagle photo by Eli Lutgens
By ELI LUTGENS
Publisher/Editor
For teachers it’s normal, and for many, rewarding to see kids grow, change, and mature as they go through school. But what about the teachers themselves, and the subjects they teach?
Kathy Meyer taught computer skills to students at NRHEG for 27 years before retiring at the end of the 2021 school year. In that time, she and the world saw the evolution of floppy disks and games like Oregon Trail, to iPads and Minecraft.
Meyer was raised in New Richland, and graduated from NRHEG High School in 1980. In tenth grade she met her future husband, Jon. The two of them raised three kids, Alyssa, Emily, and Lucas, all of whom went on to graduate from NRHEG.
Meyer attended St. Cloud State college before graduating with a teaching degree from Mankato State in 1984. Her first teaching job was at Sherburn elementary as a computer lab teacher where she set up the school's first computers. A year later, she began teaching second grade in Alden. She went on to teach sixth grade in Freeborn, which later became USC, for seven years before returning to NRHEG in the spring of 1994, as a long-term sub for Cathy Stringfield.
Meyer shared how she again found herself in a computer lab, teaching. “They kind of found out I had an interest in computers. They had a computer lab that no one was in charge of. Many of the computers didn’t work or needed maintenance and others just needed to be plugged in. I went in there and started getting them up and running. And it kind of took off from there.” In the fall of that same year, 1994, Meyer was officially hired as the NRHEG Elementary Computer teacher.
For many kids, she was simply known as the computer lab teacher. Students who came through her class experienced computers and the internet for the first time. Word, PowerPoint, and educational games and programs were all staples in her classroom. Students were taught how to properly word and research topics on the internet, because, as Meyer said in the 2000s, ‘You can’t just ask Google a question and get an answer.’ Searching the internet, especially in the early days, was an art. Students had to word their searches properly in order to find what they were looking for.
When Meyer began teaching in the computer lab, there were just four color monitors controlled with arrows that moved the cursor around on the screen. The rest were green screens. “And, of course, the kids would come in and fight over those [color monitors]!” Meyer exclaimed. “A lot has changed with technology from back then.”
Meyer’s first experience with computers was in college.
“It was amazing,” she said. “I like to tell this story about a teacher demonstrating some math programs and how he had to put in a floppy disk to get it to load. And then our assignment was to go into the library and preview more of them. I remember checking out a computer for the first time, turning it on and going, ‘Oh no!” The little drive, the floppy disk drive, was going EE URRR EE URR. And I’m like; ‘There’s no disk in there.’ And I’m hoping I didn’t break it. And wondering what should I do? And that was my first experience. But I figured it out. After that I took some basic computer programming and my interest continued to grow.”
Little did students know that every year, she too, was learning right alongside them.
“That’s one part I’m going to miss, learning all the new technology,” Meyer recalls. “It was one of the hardest parts, but one of the best parts.”
Meyer shared one of her favorite experiences/stories from her early years at NRHEG. “I remember having students come in and I would demonstrate a lesson on the computer. They’d watch and then go do it. I put a video on the color monitor for the first time and all the kids, these were 6th graders, went WHOA! Because it was in color and it was a video on the computer screen. They were so impressed by a video playing on a color monitor! You can’t impress them like that anymore.”
According to Meyer, an important lesson for today’s students is not just to be users of technology, but creators of technology. Part of her curriculum was called Coding, which introduced even the youngest students to computers, how they work and how to do basic computer programming. She said she loved seeing the excitement when students first struggled, but then mastered these skills.
Working with her students— that is what Meyer is going to miss the most as she prepares for her first fall season without students in 36 years.
“I’ve always said one thing I especially loved about my job was that I really got to know the students. I had all of them, every year, so I got to watch them grow each year until they moved on to middle school. I’m going to miss that a lot.”
Now, Meyer faces a new challenge: retirement. She and her husband, Jon, plan to do a lot of traveling. They took a trip to San Diego this summer. This fall they plan to travel the east coast, from Massachusetts to Maine and then maybe visit Aruba sometime this winter.
In her 37 years as a teacher, Meyer learned and grew alongside her students, picking up many important lessons along the way. “Look at hardships as a challenge and an opportunity, '' she said, “then you will never stop growing and learning.”