Melissa Casteel’s official title is kindergarten teacher at the Lexington Elementary School in Maywood, but she believes that she “wears many hats.”
“I feel like I’m more than just a teacher,” says the soft-spoken Casteel, 25. “I feel like I’m mom, dad, nurse and psychologist. With kindergarten students being so young and (needing so much), you just have to be so many different things for them.”
Casteel, who has been teaching at the school for three years, says she greatly enjoys “being such a big presence in the children’s lives.”
“I guess I feel that they’re at an age where I can still make some changes and have some impact on their lives,” says Casteel, a lifelong Maywood resident.
Casteel finds the rewards of the job simple but significant.
“A lot of times, the kids will accidentally call me `Mom’ or `Grandma,’ ” she says. “They’ll quickly catch themselves and say, `Oops, sorry.’ But it really shows me that they care about me. So I don’t mind the mistake.
“I’m always trying to make them feel good about themselves, and what’s great is when they’ll tell me that they love me. And I’ll tell them that I love them back. That’s something you won’t get from students in the older grades. And these kids mean it, because they’re really honest.”
Because of the close relationships she establishes with the children, Casteel finds it hard to “let them go at the end of the school year.”
“You’re happy to see them move on and develop, but it all happens so quickly,” she says. “My oldest students are already in the 2nd grade, and they’ve changed so quickly.”
She also finds visits by former pupils rewarding.
“The big thing now is they come back to read to me,” Casteel says. “They usually come by in the afternoons. Sometimes they read to just me, and sometimes they read to my whole class. That’s a really nice feeling. It’s also a treat for them because I praise them so they like to come back.”
Casteel also appreciates that the kindergartners are “open and honest.”
“You grow really attached to them because you learn about their whole life stories as they want to share everything with you,” she says. “At times, in fact, they still shock me, but now I am a little more used to it. The problems they have and the conversations they have, you would expect to come from someone much older.
“When we have sharing time, they’ll tell me about someone they know who got shot or in a fight. I believe they’re being exposed to so many more things than–say–10 years ago. It’s television, it’s society, and it’s their environment. They have so many things going on around them.
“And a lot of the children are in foster homes, and have been (moved) from home to home. So when they’re going through that type of thing and they have no one around them, they do have to grow up fast.”
When a child brings up a concern, Casteel says she tries to help.
“A lot of times, we just have to sit down and talk about the things that are going on in their lives,” she says. “And I then tell them to go home and talk to their moms if they have questions because they do have a lot on their minds.”
Casteel believes that kindergartners are eager to learn.
“Everything in the classroom is a learning experience,” she says. “I even structure their play time so that they’re learning, although they don’t know that. For example, we have a housekeeping center where the kids can play in a play kitchen. But while they’re doing that, they are writing down menus . . . so they’re practicing their writing.
“And the building blocks and cubes they have require them to count and make patterns, so that’s a part of math.”
Casteel says her favorite activity with the children is reading.
“I like to read to them and not only tell them stories but put expression into the story so that they really get into it,” she says. “I attended a kindergarten conference in February, and there was a wonderful storyteller there, and she really inspired me.
“Storytelling is a little different from reading in the expressions you use, and that you use props, felt boards and puppets to go along with the story. You give the kids a different exposure to the story, and you bring some life to the story.”
Casteel says she also emphasizes reading “because some of them aren’t read to at home. I have them bring their books from home so I can read to them, and then they can go home and read to their little brothers and sisters.
“They also love to read and be read to,” she says. “Sometimes they will sit and I can read three, four or five short stories to them at one time, which is a lot for a kindergartner.”
Casteel does well with her pupils because of her “great rapport,” Principal Frank Tobola says.
“Considering this is Melissa’s first job, she’s an excellent teacher,” he says. “She’s always willing to go that extra mile with her students, and she’s a natural with children. We’re very glad to have her.”
Casteel says she always considered being a teacher but didn’t make the choice until her college years.
A 1990 graduate of Walther Lutheran High School in Melrose Park, she decided to major in early-childhood education while a sophomore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“When I was younger, people told me that I would make a good teacher, but it wasn’t until I looked into the role of a teacher that I came to a point where I decided to follow that career path,” Casteel says.
One influence, she admits, was a family friend who taught special education in Maywood-Melrose Park-Broadview School District 89, where Casteel now teaches.
“When she would come home, she would always talk about her students and the nice things that her students did for her,” Casteel says. “There were a lot of ways her students would show her love.”
While a student teacher, Casteel worked with kindergartners and “realized that I didn’t want to teach any higher grades,” she says.
Before finishing her degree in 1994, Casteel decided that she would like to teach in Maywood.
“It is my hometown, and I did want to come back here,” she says. “I saw a lot of changes going around the neighborhood, and I wanted to come back and give something back to the community. Good things are starting to happen in Maywood, and I wanted to be a part of that.”
Casteel applied to the district before graduation and was hired to teach the following September at Lexington, 415 Lexington St.
“That was a little scary at first, coming right out of school and into a whole new world,” she says. “I quickly realized that I had to bring into the classroom a lot more than what I learned at school. During the past three years, I feel I’ve learned a lot, but I still have a lot to learn.”
Although Casteel believes she has grown as a teacher, she plans on staying with kindergartners for a few years.
“They are just so rewarding to work with,” she says. “Despite having to pull myself in many different directions, I love being with them.”
